•  •  •  •• 

•  •  •  •  • 


CI 


ENLARGED  EDI  iiv 

.       FORTT-FTGHT 


CHARLES  S^  i  SO 


COROT 
ORPHEUS  GREETING  THE  DAWN 


FRENCH  ART 

CLASSIC  AND  CONTEMPORARY 

PAINTING  AND  SCULPTURE 

BY  W.  C.  BROWNELL 


NEW  AND  ENLARGED  EDITION 

WITH  FORTY-EIGHT 

ILLUSTRATIONS 


3        }    J    i  ) 


NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1901 


COPYRIGHT,    1892,    1901,  BY    CHARLES    SCRIBNEr's    SONS         A//^  &4a 
PUBLISHED  OCTOBER,    1901  ^7-n 


^7 


IN  MEMOR(AM 


•  • 


D.    B.    UPDIKE,    THE    MERRYMOUNT    PRESS,    BOSTON 


TO  AUGUSTE  RODIN 


» 


CONTENTS 
I.  CLASSIC  PAINTING  1 

I.    CHARACTER  AND  ORIGIN 
II.    CLAUDE  AND  POUSSIN 

III.  LEBRUN  AND  LESUEUR 

IV.  LOUIS  QUINZE 

V.  GREUZE  AND  CHARDIN 
VI.  DAVID,  INGRES,  AND  PRUDHON 

II.  ROMANTIC  PAINTING  39 

I.    ROMANTICISM 
II.    Gi:RICAULT  AND  DELACROIX 

III.  THE  FONTAINEBLEAU  GROUP 

IV.  THE  ACADEMIC  PAINTERS 

V.  COUTURE,  PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES,  AND  REGNAULT 

III.  REALISTIC  PAINTING  75 

I.    REALISM 
II.    COURBET  AND  BASTIEN-LEPAGE 

III.  THE     LANDSCAPE     PAINTERS;    FROMENTIN    AND 
GUILLAUMET 

IV.  HISTORICAL  AND  PORTRAIT  PAINTERS 

V.    BAUDRY,   DELAUNAY,  BONVIN,  VOLLON,  GERVEX, 

DUEZ,    ROLL,    l'hermitte,    LEROLLE,    BERAUD  ; 
THE  ILLUSTRATORS 

VI.    MANET  AND  MONET 


mAM!71 


CONTENTS 

VII.    IMPRESSIONISM  ;  DEGAS 
VIII.    THE  OUTLOOK 

IV.  CLASSIC  SCULPTURE  117 

I.    CLAUX  SLUTERS 
II.    JEAN  GOUJON 

III.  STYLE 

IV.  CLODION,  PRADIER,  AND  ETEX 

V.  HOUDON,  DAVID  d'aNGERS,  AND  RUDE 
VI.  CARPEAUX  AND  BARYE 

V.  ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE  139 

I.    ITS  ITALIANATE  CHARACTER 
II.    CHAPU 

III.  DUBOIS 

IV.  SAINT-MARCEAUX  AND  MERCIE 

V.  TYRANNY  OF  STYLE 

VI.  FALGUIERE,  BARRIAS,  DELAPLANCHE,  AND  LE 
FEUVRE 

VII.  FREMIET 

VIII.    THE  INSTITUTE  SCHOOL  IN  GENERAL 

VL  THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE  171 

I.    RODIN 
II.    DALOU 

VII.  RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE  201 

I.    RODIN's  PRESENT  POSITION 


CONTENTS 

II.    HIS  GOTHIC  LEANINGS 

III.  DISTINCTION  FROM  THE  INSTITUTE  SCULPTORS 

IV.  HIS  NATURE-WORSHIP 
V.    HIS  TEMPERAMENT 

VI.    HIS  SENSE  OF  DESIGN 
VII.    HIS  IDEALITY 
VIII.    HIS  DETAIL 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

COROT :  ORPHEUS  GREETING  THE  DAWN  FRONTISPIECE 
CLAUDE  LORRAIN:  ULYSSES  BRINGING  BACK  CHRY- 

seis  to  her  father  facing  page  4 

poussin :  saint  paul  caught  up  to  heaven  8 

watteau :  the  embarkation  for  cythera  12 
boucher  :  vulcan  showing  the  arms  of  ^neas  to  venus     16 

chardin  :  the  blessing  20 

david  :  the  coronation  of  napoleon detail  24 

ingres  :  family  group  28 

prudhon :  psyche  carried  off  by  zephyrus  36 

gericault:  the  raft  of  the  medusa  44 

delacroix :  the  barque  of  dante  48 

rousseau :  landscape  52 

millet:  the  church  of  greville  56 

GEROME :  cock-fight  60 

BOUGUEREAU:  THE  MADONNA  OF  CONSOLATION DETAIL  64 

couture:  ROMANS  OF  THE  DECADENCE DETAIL  66 

PUVIS  DE  CHAVANNES:  SUMMER HOTEL  DE  VILLE,  PARIS  68 

REGNAULT  :  GENERAL  PRIM  72 

COURBET  :  THE  WAVE  80 

BASTIEN-LEPAGE  :  JOAN  OF  ARC — DETAIL  84 

CAZIN :  HAGAR  AND  ISHMAEL  88 

BONN  at:  THIERS  92 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

roll:  milkmaid  96 

l'hermitte  :  the  vintage  100 

bj^raud  :  la  salle  graffard  104 

manet :  bar  of  the  folies-bergere  108 

degas : ballet  112 

claux  sluters :  well  of  moses,  dijon  120 
goujon :  reliefs  from  the  fountain  of  the  innocents    1^2 

CLODION:  GROUP  OF  SATYRS  126 

HOUDON  :  VOLTAIRE  128 

RUDE  :  LE  CHANT  DU  D^IPART ARC  DE  l'eTOILE  130 

carpeaux:  la  danse — nouvel  opera  134 

barye:  lion — court  of  the  louvre  136 

chapu:  mercury  inventing  the  caduceus  144 

dubois:  charity detail  from  the  tomb  of  general 

LAMORICliiRE  148 

SAINT-MARCEAUX :  GENIUS  GUARDING  THE  SECRET  OF  THE 

TOMB  152 

FALGUli:RE :  SAINT  VINCENT  DE  PAUL  160 

BARRIAS :  THE  FIRST  FUNERAL  164 

FRl^MIET :  JOAN  OF  ARC  168 

RODIN :  THE  CALAIS  BOURGEOIS  176 

AUB:^  :  BAILLY  180 

DALOU :  MIRABEAU  AND  THE  MARQUIS  DE  DREUX-BR6z6  188 

DALOU :  TRIUMPH  OF  THE  REPUBLIC  192 

RODIN  :  THE  KISS  200 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

RODIN  :  THE  POET  208 

RODIN :  APOLLO  216 

RODIN  :  SPRING 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 


MORE  than  that  of  any  other  modem  people  French  art 
is  a  national  expression.  It  epitomizes  very  definitely 
the  national  aesthetic  judgment  and  feehng,  and  if  its  manifes- 
tations are  even  more  varied  than  are  elsewhere  to  be  met 
with,  they  share  a  certain  character  that  is  very  saUent.  Of 
almost  any  French  picture  or  statue  of  any  modern  epoch 
one's  first  thought  is  that  it  is  French.  The  national  quite 
overshadows  the  personal  quality.  In  the  field  of  the  fine  arts, 
as  in  nearly  every  other  in  which  the  French  genius  shows 
itself,  the  results  are  evident  of  an  intellectual  co-operation 
which  insures  the  development  of  a  common  standard  and 
tends  to  subordinate  idiosyncrasy.  The  fine  arts,  as  well  as 
every  other  department  of  mental  activity,  reveal  the  effect  of 
that  social  instinct  which  is  so  much  more  powerful  in  France 
than  it  is  anywhere  else,  or  has  ever  been  elsewhere,  except 
possibly  in  the  case  of  the  Athenian  repubUc.  Add  to  this 
influence  that  of  the  intellectual  as  distinguished  from  the 
sensuous  instinct,  and  one  has,  I  think,  the  key  to  this  saUent 
characteristic  of  French  art  which  strikes  one  so  sharply  and 
always  as  so  plainly  French.  As  one  walks  through  the  French 
rooms  at  the  Louvre,  through  the  galleries  of  the  Luxembourg, 
through  the  unending  rooms  of  the  Salon  he  is  impressed  by 
the  splendid  competence  everywhere  displayed,  the  high  stand- 
ard of  culture  universally  attested,  by  the  overwhelming  evi- 

[3] 


FRENCH  ART 

dence  that  France  stands  at  the  head  of  the  modern  world 
assthetically — but  not  less,  I  think,  does  one  feel  the  absence 
of  imagination,  opportunity,  of  spirituality,  of  poetry  in  a  word. 
The  French  themselves  feel  something  of  this.  At  the  great 
Exposition  of  1889  no  pictures  were  so  much  admired  by  them 
as  the  English,  in  which  appeared,  even  to  an  excessive  degree, 
just  the  qualities  in  which  French  art  is  lacking,  and  which  less 
than  those  of  any  other  school  showed  traces  of  the  now  all 
but  universal  influence  of  French  art.  The  most  distinct  and 
durable  impression  left  by  any  exhibition  of  French  pictures  is 
that  the  French  aesthetic  genius  is  at  once  admirably  artistic 
and  extremely  little  poetic. 

It  is  a  corollary  of  the  predominance  of  the  intellectual  over 
the  sensuous  instinct  that  the  true  should  be  preferred  to  the 
beautiful,  and  some  French  critics  are  so  far  from  denying  this 
preference  of  French  art  that  they  express  pride  in  it,  and,  in- 
deed, defend  it  in  a  way  that  makes  one  feel  slightly  amateur- 
ish and  fanciful  in  thinking  of  beauty  apart  from  truth.  A  walk 
through  the  Louvre,  however,  suffices  to  restore  one  s  confi- 
dence in  his  own  convictions.  The  French  rooms,  at  least  until 
modern  periods  are  reached,  are  a  demonstration  that  in  the 
sphere  of  aesthetics  science  does  not  produce  the  greatest  artists 
— that  something  other  than  intelligent  interest  and  technical 
accomplishment  are  requisite  to  that  end,  and  that  system  is 
fatal  to  spontaneity.  M.  Eugene  V^ron  is  the  mouthpiece  of 
his  countrymen  in  asserting  absolute  beauty  to  be  an  abstrac- 
tion, but  the  practice  of  the  mass  of  French  painters  is,  by 
comparison  with  that  of  the  great  Italians  and  Dutchmen,  elo- 

[4] 


;  sm?  'S'  «j 


■i/Uf^^' 


•  <  •  •  •    •< 

a  •  •  •  •        •  « 


P4 

H 

o 


iiOt 


...  ^   i 


\l  V      JI.1 


lion,  opportunity  mi  |j*  c< 

h  themselves  fe  -  of  this.  At  the  ^..v^..- 


89  no  piot 


.t.  „.i,.,:,,,..i  1.,.  4-]..i,;t,-> 


all 
,iui 


-. ...  J     i.  ..     ;. 


•y  amateui- 
irath,    ^    -^'- 


^  •         ones  couii 

%  1  reach  ^  least  unti 

g  ire  a  c3^  jn  that  in  ^b 

c  i> i  ts  not  proiiuce  Uie  greatest  ar 

S  X  -  ig  other  thao  nt  interest  and  teehmc; 

K  to  are  requisite  end,  and  i^at  system  h 

g  E  t^  •  -eityt  M.  T  Veron  ''    ^ 

^  '■"  asserting  ^  ^i  austrac 

ft  ,?:  '  '        '     ' 

S  .;]iiiieiK     ■ 


c  e  £  c  e 


rccc*        c«c 
ccc«»       tec 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
quent  of  the  lack  of  poetry  that  results  from  a  scepticism  of  ab- 
stractions. The  French  classic  painters — and  the  classic  spirit, 
in  spite  of  every  force  that  the  modern  world  brings  to  its  de- 
struction, persists  wonderfully  in  France — show  little  absorp- 
tion, little  delight  in  their  subject.  Contrasted  with  the  great 
names  in  painting  they  are  eclectic  and  traditional,  too  purely 
expert.  They  are  too  cultivated  to  invent.  Selection  has  taken 
the  place  of  discovery  in  their  inspiration.  They  are  addicted  to 
the  rational  and  the  regulated.  Their  substance  is  never  senti- 
mental and  incommunicable.  Their  works  have  a  distinctly  pro- 
fessional air.  They  distrust  what  cannot  be  expressed;  what  can 
only  be  suggested  does  not  seem  to  them  worth  the  trouble  of 
trying  to  conceive.  Beside  the  world  of  mystery  and  the  wealth 
of  emotion  forming  an  imaginative  penumbra  around  such  a 
design  as  Raphael's  "Vision  of  Ezekiel,"  for  instance,  Poussin  s 
treatment  of  essentially  the  same  subject  is  a  diagram. 

On  the  other  hand,  qualities  intimately  associated  with  these 
defects  are  quite  as  noticeable  in  the  old  French  rooms  of  the 
Louvre.  Clearness,  compactness,  measure,  and  balance  are  evi- 
dent in  nearly  every  canvas.  Everywhere  is  the  air  of  reserve, 
of  intellectual  good-breeding,  of  avoidance  of  extravagance. 
That  French  painting  is  at  the  head  of  contemporary  painting, 
as  far  and  away  incontestably  it  is,  is  due  to  the  fact  that  it 
alone  has  kept  alive  the  traditions  of  art  which,  elsewhere  than 
in  France,  have  given  place  to  other  and  more  material  ideals. 
From  the  first  its  practitioners  have  been  artists  rather  than 
poets,  have  possessed,  that  is  to  say,  the  constructive  rather 
than  the  creative,  the  organizing  rather  than  the  imaginative 

[5] 


FRENCH  ART 

temperament,  but  they  have  rarely  been  perfunctory  and  never 
common.  French  painting  in  its  preference  of  truth  to  beauty, 
of  intelligence  to  the  beatific  vision,  of  form  to  color,  in  a  word, 
has  nevertheless,  and  perhaps  a  fortiori^  always  been  the  expres- 
^^  sion  of  ideas.  These  ideas  almost  invariably  have  been  expressed 
in  rigorous  form — form  which  at  times  fringes  the  lifelessness 
of  symbolism.  But  even  less  frequently,  I  think,  than  other 
peoples  have  the  French  exhibited  in  their  painting  that  con- 
tentment with  painting  in  itself  that  is  the  dry  rot  of  art.  With 
all  their  addiction  to  truth  and  form  they  have  followed  this 
ideal  so  systematically  that  they  have  never  suffered  it  to  be- 
come mechanical,  vaer Ay  formal — as  is  so  often  the  case  else- 
where (in  England  and  among  ourselves,  every  one  will  have 
remarked)  in  instances  where  form  has  been  mainly  considered 
and  where  sentiment  happens  to  be  lacking.  Even  when  care 
for  form  is  so  excessive  as  to  imply  an  absence  of  character,  the 
form  itself  is  apt  to  be  so  distinguished  as  itself  to  supply  the 
element  of  character,  and  character  consequently  particularly 
refined  and  immaterial.  And  one  quality  is  always  present: 
elegance  is  always  evidently  aimed  at  and  measurably  achieved. 
Native  or  foreign,  real  or  factitious  as  the  inspiration  of  French 
classicism  may  be,  the  sense  of  style  and  of  that  perfection  of 
style  which  we  know  as  elegance  is  invariably  noticeable  in  its 
productions.  So  that,  we  may  say,  from  Poussin  to  Puvis  de 
Chavannes,  from  Clouet  to  Meissonier,  taste — a  refined  and 
cultivated  sense  of  what  is  sound,  estimable,  competent,  re- 
served, satisfactory,  up  to  the  mark,  and  above  all,  elegant  and 
distinguished — has  been  at  once  the  arbiter  and  the  stimulus 

[6] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
of  excellence  in  French  painting.  It  is  this  which  has  made  the 
France  of  the  past  three  centuries,  and  especially  the  France 
of  to-day — as  we  get  farther  and  farther  away  from  the  great 
art  epochs — both  in  amount  and  general  excellence  of  artistic 
activity,  comparable  only  with  the  Italy  of  the  Renaissance 
and  the  Greece  of  antiquity. 

Moreover,  it  is  an  error  to  assume,  because  form  in  French 
painting  appeals  to  us  more  strikingly  than  substance,  that 
French  painting  is  lacking  in  substance.  In  its  perfection  form 
appeals  to  every  appreciation ;  it  is  in  art,  one  may  say,  the  one 
universal  language.  But  just  in  proportion  as  form  in  a  work 
of  art  approaches  perfection,  or  universahty,  just  in  that  pro- 
portion does  the  substance  which  it  clothes,  which  it  expresses, 
seem  unimportant  to  those  to  whom  this  substance  is  foreign. 
Some  critics  have  even  fancied,  for  example,  that  Greek  archi- 
tecture and  sculpture — the  only  Greek  art  we  know  anything 
about — were  chiefly  concerned  with  form,  and  that  the  ideas 
behind  their  perfection  of  form  were  very  simple  and  elemen- 
tary ideas,  not  at  all  comparable  in  complexity  and  elaborate- 
ness with  those  that  confuse  and  distinguish  the  modern  world. 
When  one  comes  to  French  art  it  is  still  more  difficult  for  us 
to  realize  that  the  ideas  underlying  its  expression  are  ideas  of 
import,  validity,  and  attachment.  The  truth  is  largely  that 
French  ideas  are  not  our  ideas;  not  that  the  French  who — 
except  possibly  the  ancient  Greeks  and  the  modem  Germans 
— of  all  peoples  in  the  world  are,  as  one  may  say,  addicted  to 
ideas,  are  lacking  in  them.  Technical  excellence  is  simply  the 
inseparable   accompaniment,  the   outward   expression  of  the 

[7] 


FRENCH  ART 

kind  of  aesthetic  ideas  the  French  are  enamoured  of.  Their  sub- 
stance is  not  our  substance,  but  while  it  is  perfectly  legitimate 
for  us  to  criticise  their  substance  it  is  idle  to  maintain  that  they 
are  lacking  in  substance.  If  we  call  a  painting  by  Poussin 
pure  style,  a  composition  of  David  merely  the  perfection  of 
convention,  one  of  M.  Rochegrosse's  dramatic  canvases  the 
rhetoric  of  technic  and  that  only,  we  miss  something.  We 
miss  the  idea,  the  substance,  behind  these  varying  expressions. 
These  are  not  the  less  real  for  being  foreign  to  us.  They  are 
less  spiritual  and  more  material,  less  poetic  and  spontaneous, 
more  schooled  and  traditional  than  we  like  to  see  associated 
with  such  adequacy  of  expression,  but  they  are  not  for  that 
reason  more  mechanical.  They  are  ideas  and  substance  that 
lend  themselves  to  technical  expression  a  thousand  times  more 
readily  than  do  ours.  They  are,  in  fact,  exquisitely  adapted  to 
technical  expression. 

The  substance  and  ideas  which  we  desire  fully  expressed  in 
color,  form,  or  words  are,  indeed,  very  exactly  in  proportion 
to  our  esteem  of  them,  inexpressible.  We  hke  hints  of  the  un- 
utterable, suggestions  of  significance  that  is  mysterious  and 
import  that  is  incalculable.  The  light  that  "never  was  on 
sea  or  land"  is  the  illumination  we  seek.  The  "Heaven," 
not  the  atmosphere  that  "lies  about  us"  in  our  mature  age 
as  "in  our  infancy,"  is  what  appeals  most  strongly  to  our 
subordination  of  the  intellect  and  the  senses  to  the  imagi- 
nation and  the  soul.  Nothing  with  us  very  deeply  impresses 
the  mind  if  it  does  not  arouse  the  emotions.  Naturally,  thus, 
we  are  predisposed  insensibly  to  infer  from  French  articulate- 

[8] 


•      •    ao 


POUSSIN 
SAINT  PAUL  CAUGHT  UP  TO  HEAVEN 


T  AKT 


-rietic  iti»-..*:- 
uot  our  subst 
'^'^ticise  their 


are  iiuj^sig   in  subst 


pure  style,  a  eomp<»» 
convention,  one  of  M.  V 
rhetoric  of  lechnic  and 

miss  the  m!--'   *'^^''  .-.H^to. 


ii.  If  fit  hji   » 


I  sub- 

.  ,cs  the 


+Kof 


utteraii  'i«^^  ^"^  ^^\ 

import  I'tuaDic.    iiie    agnt  thlit   "lii^^c;    ^^n^   *.'m 

se-  lae  ill'       -'^v-     -    -ek.  The  "He:--^" 

not  tue  aUiiospnere  that  "iies  aoouL  u^^  in  our  matti' 
»^  ey,"  is  what  appeals  most  str^     ^ 

intellect  and  the  s  ^       jht   ^Hta 

......  "^  othing  with  us  '"       -^. 

.V  :  :  .     .  arouse  tho  iymnrnuy,  u 

•      :  isensibly  to  imei  irom  rrench  articulaU- 

[8] 


XI«8  K)*I 


It       t  *   t  t 

t    c  cc       *     t 

*■  •      c        c    c 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

ness  the  absence  of  substance,  to  assume  from  the  triumphant 
facihty  and  fehcity  of  French  expression  a  certain  insignifi- 
cance of  what  is  expressed.  Inferences  and  assumptions  based 
on  temperament,  however,  almost  invariably  have  the  vice  of 
superficiaUty,  and  it  takes  no  very  prolonged  study  of  French 
art  for  candor  and  intelligence  to  perceive  that  if  its  substance 
is  weak  on  the  sentimental,  the  emotional,  the  poetic,  the 
spiritual  side,  it  is  exceptionally  strong  in  rhetorical,  artistic, 
cultivated,  aesthetically  elevated  ideas,  as  well  as  in  that  tech- 
nical excellence  which  alone,  owing  to  our  own  inexpertness, 
first  strikes  and  longest  impresses  us. 

When  we  have  no  ideas  to  express,  in  a  word,  we  rarely 
save  our  emptiness  by  any  appearance  of  clever  expression. 
When  a  Frenchman  expresses  ideas  for  which  we  do  not  care, 
with  which  we  are  temperamentally  out  of  sympathy,  we  as- 
sume that  his  expression  is  equaUy  empty.  Matthew  Arnold 
cites  a  passage  from  Mr.  Palgrave,  and  comments  significantly 
on  it,  in  this  sense.  "The  style,"  exclaims  Mr.  Palgrave, 
"which  has  filled  London  with  the  dead  monotony  of  Gower 
or  Harley  Streets,  or  the  pale  commonplace  of  Belgravia, 
Tyburnia,  and  Kensington;  which  has  pierced  Paris  and  Ma- 
drid with  the  feeble  frivolities  of  the  Rue  Rivoli  and  the 
Strada  de  Toledo."  Upon  which  Arnold  observes  that  "the 
architecture  of  the  Rue  Rivoli  expresses  show,  splendor,  plea- 
sure, unworthy  things,  perhaps,  to  express  alone  and  for  their 
own  sakes,  but  it  expresses  them ;  whereas,  the  architecture  of 
Gower  Street  and  Belgravia  merely  expresses  the  impotence 
of  the  architect  to  express  anything." 

[9] 


FRENCH  ART 

And  in  characterizing  the  turn  for  poetry  in  French  paint- 
ing as  comparatively  inferior,  it  will  be  understood  at  once, 
I  hope,  that  I  am  comparing  it  with  the  imaginativeness 
of  the  great  Italians  and  Dutchmen,  and  with  Rubens  and 
Holbein  and  Turner,  and  not  asserting  the  supremacy  in  ele- 
vated sentiment  over  Claude  and  Corot,  Chardin,  and  Cazin,  of 
the  Royal  Academy,  or  the  New  York  Society  of  American 
Artists.  And  so  far  as  an  absolute  rather  than  a  comparative 
standard  may  be  applied  in  matters  so  much  too  vast  for  any 
hope  of  adequate  treatment  according  to  either  method,  we 
ought  never  to  forget  that  in  criticising  French  painting,  as 
well  as  other  things  French,  we  are  measuring  it  by  an  ideal 
that  now  and  then  we  may  appreciate  better  than  Frenchmen, 
but  rarely  illustrate  as  well. 


II 


Furthermore,  the  qualities  and  defects  of  French  painting 
— the  predominance  in  it  of  national  over  individual  force 
and  distinction,  its  turn  for  style,  the  kind  of  ideas  that  in- 
spire its  substance,  its  classic  spirit  in  fine — are  explained 
hardly  less  by  its  historic  origin  than  by  the  character  of  the 
French  genius  itself.  French  painting  really  began  in  connois- 
seurship,  one  may  say.  It  arose  in  appreciation,  that  faculty  in 
which  the  French  have  always  been,  and  still  are,  unrivalled. 
Its  syntheses  were  based  on  elements  already  in  combination. 
It  originated  nothing.  It  was  eclectic  at  the  outset.  Compared 
with  the  slow  and  suave  evolution  of  Italian  art,  in  whose 

[10] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

earliest  dawn  its  borrowed  Byzantine  painting  served  as  a 
stimulus  and  suggestion  to  original  views  of  natural  material 
rather  than  as  a  model  for  imitation  and  modification,  the 
painting  that  sprang  into  existence,  Minerva-like,  in  full  ar- 
mor, at  Fontainebleau  under  Francis  I.,  was  of  the  essence 
of  artificiality.  The  court  of  France  was  far  more  splendid 
than,  and  equally  enlightened  with,  that  of  Florence.  The 
monarch  felt  his  title  to  Msecenasship  as  justified  as  that 
of  the  Medici.  He  created,  accordingly,  French  painting  out  of 
hand — I  mean,  at  all  events,  the  French  painting  that  stands 
at  the  beginning  of  the  line  of  the  present  tradition.  He  sum- 
moned Leonardo,  Andrea  del  Sarto,  Rossi,  Primaticcio,  and 
founded  the  famous  Fontainebleau  school.  Of  necessity  it  was 
Itahanate.  It  had  no  Giotto,  Masaccio,  Raphael  behind  it. 
ItaHan  was  the  best  art  going ;  French  appreciation  was  edu- 
cated and  keen ;  its  choice  between  evolution  and  adoption  was 
inevitable.  It  was  very  much  in  the  position  in  which  Ameri- 
can appreciation  finds  itself  to-day.  Like  our  own  painters,  the 
French  artists  of  the  Renaissance  found  themselves  familiar 
with  masterpieces  whoUy  beyond  their  power  to  create,  and 
produced  by  a  foreign  people  who  had  enjoyed  the  incom- 
parable advantage  of  arriving  at  their  artistic  apogee  through 
natural  stages  of  growth,  beginning  with  impulse  and  culmi- 
nating in  expertness. 

The  situation  had  its  advantages  as  well  as  its  drawbacks, 
certainly.  It  saved  .French  painting  an  immense  amount  of 
fumbhng,  of  laborious  experimentation,  of  crudity,  of  failure. 
But  it  stamped  it  with  an  essential  artificiahty  from  which  it 

[11] 


FRENCH  ART 

did  not  fully  recover  for  over  two  hundred  years,  until,  insen- 
sibly, it  had  built  up  its  own  traditions  and  gradually  brought 
about  its  own  inherent  development.  In  a  word,  French  paint- 
ing had  an  intellectual  rather  than  an  emotional  origin.  Its  first 
practitioners  were  men  of  culture  rather  than  of  feeling;  they 
were  inspired  by  the  artistic,  the  constructive,  the  fashioning, 
rather  than  the  poetic,  spirit.  And  so  evident  is  this  inclina- 
tion in  even  contemporary  French  painting — and  indeed  in  all 
French  gesthetic  expression — that  it  cannot  be  ascribed  wholly 
to  the  circumstances  mentioned.  The  circumstances  themselves 
need  an  explanation,  and  find  it  in  the  constitution  itself  of 
the  French  mind,  which  (owing,  doubtless,  to  other  circum- 
stances, but  that  is  extraneous)  is  fundamentally  less  imagina- 
tive and  creative  than  co-ordinating  and  constructive. 

Naturally  thus,  when  the  Italian  influence  wore  itself  out, 
and  the  Fontainebleau  school  gave  way  to  a  more  purely  na- 
tional art ;  when  France  had  definitely  entered  into  her  Italian 
heritage  and  had  learned  the  lessons  that  Holland  and  Flan- 
ders had  to  teach  her  as  well ;  when,  in  fine,  the  art  of  the 
modern  world  began,  it  was  an  art  of  grammar,  of  rhetoric. 
Certainly  up  to  the  time  of  Gericault  painting  in  general  held 
itself  rather  pedantically  aloof  from  poetry.  Claude,  Chardin, 
what  may  be  called  the  illustrated  vers  de  society  of  the  Louis 
Quinze  painters — of  Watteau  and  Fragonard — even  Prudhon, 
did  little  to  change  the  prevailing  color  and  tone.  Claude's  art 
is,  in  manner,  thoroughly  classic.  His  personal  influence  was 
perhaps  first  felt  by  Corot.  He  stands  by  himself,  at  any  rate, 
quite  apart.    He  was   the   first  thoroughly   original   French 

[IS] 


o 

O 

fi 

H 
< 

H 


X  built  up  !t^    ^  ^ 
._   own  inheren 
,uz   lad  an  intellect 
practitioners  were  l  , 
were  inspired  by  Ifei^  artistic 
rather  than  the  poetic,  ^|i 
tion  in  even  6c#nteirir»or«r 


he 


CT  -^fl^-zr-.^ 


1 1,  insen- 

brought 

f  px'h  paint 

Its  first 

ig;  they 

hioning, 

indina- 

'hi^d  whollv 

elf  of 
circum- 
magina- 


^  v^rr     if^i^lf  out, 

,.,y  na- 

.    r  Italian 

♦Hid  Flail- 

...     ,*rt  of  the 

^*^i*v*  tar,  of  rhetoric. 

i.  :in.uiiy  up  tci    >r     ltji-  *'*  w.  .:•*.....  |..*j.»wix5  in  gcttcral  hcld 

itself  rather  pedantically  aloof  from  poetry.  Claude,  Chardin, 

V  ^  "'  >>e  called  tiie  illustrated  i;er^  de  sodM^  of  the  Louis 

*-rs — of  Watteau  and  Fragonard— even  Prudhon, 

nge  the  prevailing  color  and  tone.  Claudes  art 

clKWoughly  classic.  His  personal  influence  was 

t  bv^Corot  He  stands  by  himself,  at  any  rate, 

i     ^vn*    '^      fti^  thoroughly  oripnal  French 

1.1  1 


C    f    C<    £ 

c  c  c  c  c 


c  c  cc 
c  c  cc 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
painter,  if  indeed  one  may  not  say  he  was  the  first  thoroughly 
original  modern  painter.  He  has  been  assigned  to  both  the 
French  and  Italian  schools — to  the  latter  by  Gallophobist 
critics,  however,  through  a  partisanship  which  in  aesthetic 
matters  is  ridiculous;  there  was  in  his  day  no  Italian  school 
for  him  to  belong  to.  The  truth  is  that  he  passed  a  large  part 
of  his  life  in  Italy  and  that  his  landscape  is  Italianate.  But 
more  conspicuously  still,  it  is  ideal — ideal  in  the  sense  intended 
by  Goethe  in  saying,  "There  are  no  landscapes  in  nature  like 
those  of  Claude."  There  are  not,  indeed.  Nature  has  been 
transmuted  by  Claude's  alchemy  with  lovelier  results  than 
any  other  painter — save  always  Corot,  shall  I  say? — has  ever 
achieved.  Witness  the  pastorals  at  Madrid,  in  the  Doria  Gal- 
lery at  Rome,  the  "Dido  and  ^neas"  at  Dresden,  the  sweet 
and  serene  superiority  of  the  National  Gallery  canvases  over 
the  struggling  competition  manifest  in  the  Turners  juxtaposed 
to  them  through  the  unlucky  ambition  of  the  great  English 
painter.  Mr.  Ruskin  says  that  Claude  could  paint  a  small  wave 
very  well,  and  acknowledges  that  he  effected  a  revolution  in 
art,  which  revolution  "consisted  mainly  in  setting  the  sun  in 
heavens."  "Mainly"  is  delightful,  but  Claude's  excellence  con- 
sists in  his  abihty  to  paint  visions  of  loveliness,  pictures  of 
pure  beauty,  not  in  his  skill  in  observing  the  drawing  of  wave- 
lets or  his  happy  thought  of  painting  sunlight.  Mr.  George 
Moore  observes  ironically  of  Mr.  Ruskin  that  his  grotesque 
depreciation  of  Mr.  Whistler — "the  lot  of  critics"  being  "to 
be  remembered  by  what  they  have  failed  to  understand" — 
"will  survive  his  finest  prose  passage."  I  am  not  sure  about 

[13] 


FRENCH  ART 

Mr.  Whistler.  Contemporaries  are  too  near  for  a  perfect  criti- 
cal perspective.  But  assuredly  Mr.  Ruskin's  failure  to  perceive 
Claude's  point  of  view — to  perceive  that  Claude's  aim  and 
Stanfield's,  say,  were  quite  different;  that  Claude,  in  fact,  was 
at  the  opposite  pole  from  the  botanist  and  the  geologist  whom 
Mr.  Ruskin's  "reverence  for  nature"  would  make  of  every 
landscape  painter — is  a  failure  in  appreciation  than  to  have 
shown  which  it  would  be  better  for  him  as  a  critic  never  to 
have  been  born.  It  seems  hardly  fanciful  to  say  that  the  depre- 
ciation of  Claude  by  Mr.  Ruskin,  who  is  a  landscape  painter 
himself,  using  the  medium  of  words  instead  of  pigments,  is,  so 
to  speak,  professionally  unjust. 

"Go  out,  in  the  springtime,  among  the  meadows  that  slope 
from  the  shores  of  the  Swiss  lakes  to  the  roots  of  their  lower 
mountains.  There,  mingled  with  the  taller  gentians  and  the 
white  narcissus,  the  grass  grows  deep  and  free;  and  as  you 
follow  the  winding  mountain  paths,  beneath  arching  boughs 
all  veiled  and  dim  with  blossom — paths  that  forever  droop 
and  rise  over  the  green  banks  and  mounds  sweeping  down  in 
scented  undulation,  steep  to  the  blue  water,  studded  here  and 
there  with  new-mown  heaps,  filling  the  air  with  fainter  sweet- 
ness— look  up  toward  the  higher  hills,  where  the  waves  of 
everlasting  green  roll  silently  into  their  long  inlets  among  the 
shadows  of  the  pines." 

Claude's  landscape  is  not  Swiss,  but  if  it  were  it  would 
awaken  in  the  beholder  a  very  similar  sensation  to  that  aroused 
in  the  reader  of  this  famous  passage.  Claude  indeed  painted 
landscape  in  precisely  this  way.  He  was  perhaps  the  first — 

[14] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

though  priority  in  such  matters  is  trivial  beside  pre-eminence — 
who  painted  effects  instead  of  things.  Light  and  air  were  his  ma- 
terial, not  ponds  and  rocks  and  clouds  and  trees  and  stretches 
of  plain  and  mountain  outlines.  He  first  generalized  the  phe- 
nomena of  inanimate  nature,  and  in  this  he  remains  still  un- 
surpassed. But,  superficially,  his  scheme  wore  the  classic  aspect, 
and  neither  his  contemporaries  nor  his  successors,  for  over  two 
hundred  years,  discovered  the  immense  value  of  his  point  of 
view,  and  the  puissant  charm  of  his  way  of  rendering  nature. 

Poussin,  however,  was  the  incarnation  of  the  classic  spirit, 
and  perhaps  the  reason  why  a  disinterested  foreigner  finds 
it  difficult  to  appreciate  the  French  estimate  of  him  is  that 
no  foreigner,  however  disinterested,  can  quite  appreciate  the 
French  appreciation  of  the  classic  spirit  in  and  for  itself.  But 
when  one  hstens  to  expressions  of  admiration  for  the  one 
French  "old  master,"  as  one  may  call  Poussin  without  invid- 
iousness,  it  is  impossible  not  to  scent  chauvinism,  as  one  scents 
it  in  the  German  panegyrics  of  Goethe,  for  example.  He  was 
a  very  great  painter,  beyond  doubt.  And  as  there  were  great 
men  before  Agamemnon  there  have  been  great  painters  since 
Raphael  and  Titian,  even  since  Rembrandt  and  Velasquez.  He 
had  a  strenuous  personality,  moreover.  You  know  a  Poussin 
at  once  when  you  see  it.  But  to  find  the  suggestion  of  the  in- 
finite, the  Shakesperian  touch  in  his  work  seems  to  demand 
the  imaginativeness  of  M.  Victor  Cherbuliez.  When  Mr.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  ventured  to  remark  to  Sainte-Beuve  that  he 
could  not  consider  Lamartine  as  a  very  important  poet,  Sainte- 
Beuve  replied:  "He  was  important  to  us."  Many  critics,  among 

[15] 


FRENCH  ART 

them  one  severer  than  Samte-Beuve,  the  late  Edmond  Scherer, 
have  given  excellent  reasons  for  Lamartine's  absolute  as  well 
as  relative  importance,  and  perhaps  it  is  a  failure  in  apprecia- 
tion on  our  part  that  is  really  responsible  for  our  feeling  that 
Poussin  is  not  quite  the  great  master  the  French  deem  him. 
Assuredly  he  might  justifiably  apply  to  himself  the  "Et-Ego- 
in- Arcadia"  inscription  in  one  of  his  most  famous  paintings. 
And  the  specific  service  he  performed  for  French  painting  and 
the  relative  rank  he  occupies  in  it  ought  not  to  obscure  his 
purely  personal  quahties,  which,  if  not  transcendent,  are  in- 
contestably  elevated  and  fine. 

His  quahties,  however,  are  very  thoroughly  French  quahties 
— poise,  rationahty,  science,  the  artistic  dominating  the  poetic 
faculty,  and  style  quite  outshining  significance  and  suggestion. 
He  learned  all  he  knew  of  art,  he  said,  from  the  Bacchus 
Torso  at  Naples.  But  he  was  eclectic  rather  than  imitative, 
and  certainly  used  the  material  he  found  in  the  works  of 
his  artistic  ancestors  as  freely  and  personally  as  Raphael  the 
frescos  of  the  Baths  of  Titus,  or  Donatello  the  fragments  of 
antique  sculpture.  From  his  time  on,  indeed,  French  painting 
dropped  its  Italian  leading-strings.  He  might  often  suggest 
Raphael — and  any  painter  who  suggests  Raphael  inevitably 
suffers  for  it — but  always  with  an  individual,  a  native,  a 
French  difference,  and  he  is  as  far  removed  in  spirit  and 
essence  from  the  Fontainebleau  school  as  the  French  genius 
itself  is  from  the  Itahan  which  presided  there.  In  Poussin,  in- 
deed, the  French  genius  first  asserts  itself  in  painting.  And  it 
asserts  itself  splendidly  in  him. 

[16] 


BOUCHER 
VULCAN  SHOWING  THE  ARMS  OF  ^NEAS  TO  VENUS 


H  ART 


thep  one  severer  than  S 
have  given  excellent  n 
i^  rdiative  importance, 
ticHi  <m  our  part 
RwDssin  is  not  quite  tiie  pr> 
Assuredly  he  might  ja.s 
in- Arcadia"  inscription  in 
And  the  specific  service  bt 
the  relative  rank  he  m 


J iiond  Scherer, 
absolute  as  well 
e  in  apprecia- 
jr  feeling  that 
rh  deem  hini. 
the  "Et-Ego- 
paintings. 


ig  and 


are  m- 


h  qualities 

the  poetic 

•id  su^estion. 

Mm-  %  the  Bacchus 

Timm  .'.t  imitative, 

m^  e  rks  of 

hi     5-  icl  the 

fr  the  B  ents  of 

iul|rf;urt  I  painting 

droppwi  its  Itidian  ^v  m^  I  Jut  often  surest 

Kaphtd — and  «ny  painter  who  suggests  Baphael  inevitably 

siu  it — but  always  with  an  individual,  a  native,  a 

Frem-  ence,  and  he  is  as  far  removed  in    j  uu 

essern,     .  .     the  Fontainebleau  school  as  the  French  genius 

itself  is  fh?m  the  Italian  which  presided  there.  In  Poussin,  in- 

d  T  vl  tlie  French  genius  first  asserts  itijelf  in  fwdnting.  And  it 

itself  splendidlv  in  him. 


HAM  )  }im 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
We  who  ask  to  be  moved  as  well  as  impressed,  who  demand 
satisfaction  of  the  susceptibility  as  well  as — shall  we  say  rather 
than? — interest  of  the  intelligence,  may  feel  that  for  the  quali- 
ties in  which  Poussin  is  lacking  those  in  which  he  is  rich  afford 
no  compensation  whatever.  But  I  confess  that  in  the  presence 
of  even  that  portion  of  Poussin's  magnificent  accomplishment 
which  is  spread  before  one  in  the  Louvre,  to  wish  one's  self  in 
the  Stanze  of  the  Vatican  or  in  the  Sistine  Chapel,  seems  to 
me  an  uninteUigent  sacrifice  of  one's  opportunities. 


Ill 


It  is  a  sure  mark  of  narrowness  and  defective  powers  of  per- 
ception to  fail  to  discover  the  point  of  view  even  of  what  one 
disesteems.  We  talk  of  Poussin,  of  Louis  Quatorze  art — as 
of  its  revival  under  David  and  its  continuance  in  Ingres — 
of,  in  general,  modern  classic  art  as  if  it  were  an  art  of  con- 
vention merely ;  whereas,  conventional  as  it  is,  its  convention- 
ahty  is — or  was,  certainly,  in  the  seventeenth  century — very 
far  from  being  pure  formulary.  It  was  genuinely  expressive 
of  a  certain  order  of  ideas  inteUigently  held,  a  certain  set  of 
principles  sincerely  believed  in,  a  view  of  art  as  positive  and 
genuine  as  the  revolt  against  the  tyrannous  system  into  which 
it  developed.  We  are  simply  out  of  sympathy  with  its  aim,  its 
ideal ;  perhaps,  too,  for  that  most  frivolous  of  all  reasons  be- 
cause we  have  grown  tired  of  it. 

But  the  business  of  intelligent  criticism  is  to  be  in  touch 
with  everything.  "Tout  comprendre,  c'est  tout  pardonner,"  as 

[17] 


FRENCH  ART 

the  French  ethical  maxim  has  it,  may  be  modified  into  the 
true  motto  of  aesthetic  criticism,  "Tout  comprendre,  c'est  tout 
justifier."  Of  course,  by  "criticism"  one  does  not  mean  peda- 
gogy, as  so  many  people  constantly  imagine,  nor  does  justify- 
ing everything  include  bad  drawing.  But  as  Lebrun,  for  exam- 
ple, is  not  nowadays  held  up  as  a  model  to  young  painters, 
and  is  not  to  be  accused  of  bad  drawing,  why  do  we  so  entirely 
dispense  ourselves  from  comprehending  him  at  all?  Lebrun 
is,  perhaps,  not  a  painter  of  enough  personal  importance  to 
repay  attentive  consideration,  and  historic  importance  does  not 
greatly  concern  criticism.  But  we  pass  him  by  on  the  ground 
of  his  conventionality,  without  remembering  that  what  appears 
conventional  to  us  was  in  his  case  not  only  sincerity  but  ag- 
gressive enthusiasm.  If  there  ever  was  a  painter  who  exercised 
what  creative  and  imaginative  faculty  he  had  with  an  absolute 
gusto,  Lebrun  did  so.  He  interested  his  contemporaries  im- 
mensely; no  painter  ever  ruled  more  unrivalled.  He  fails  to 
interest  us  because  we  have  another  point  of  view.  We  believe 
in  our  point  of  view  and  disbelieve  in  his  as  a  matter  of  course; 
and  it  would  be  self-contradictory  to  say,  in  the  interests  of 
critical  cathoHcity,  that  in  our  opinion  his  may  be  as  sound  as 
our  own.  But  to  say  that  he  has  no  point  of  view  whatever — 
to  say,  in  general,  that  modern  classic  art  is  perfunctory  and 
mere  formulary — is  to  be  guilty  of  what  has  always  been  the  | 
inherent  vice  of  protestantism  in  all  fields  of  mental  activity. 

Nowhere  has  protestantism  exhibited  this  defect  more  pal- 
pably than  in  the  course  of  evolution  of  schools  of  painting. 
Pre-Raphaelitism   is  perhaps  the    only  exception,   and  pre- 

[18] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

Raphaelitism  was  a  violent  and  emotional  counter-revolu- 
tion rather  than  a  movement  characterized  by  catholicity  of 
critical  appreciation.  Literary  criticism  is  certainly  full  of  simi- 
lar intolerance;  though  when  Gautier  talks  about  Racine,  or 
Zola  about  "Mes  Haines,"  or  Mr.  Howells  about  Scott,  the 
polemic  temper,  the  temper  most  opposed  to  the  critical,  is 
very  generally  recognized.  And  in  spite  of  their  admirable  ac- 
complishment in  various  branches  of  literature,  these  writers 
will  never  quite  recover  from  the  misfortune  of  having  pre- 
occupied  themselves  as  critics  with  the  defects  instead  of  the 
qualities  of  what  is  classic.  Yet  the  protestantism  of  the  suc- 
cessive schools  of  painting  against  the  errors  of  their  prede- 
cessors has  something  even  more  crass  about  it.  Contemporary 
painters  and  critics  thoroughly  alive,  and  fully  in  the  contem- 
porary aesthetic  current,  so  far  from  appreciating  modern  classic 
art  sympathetically,  are  apt  to  admire  the  old  masters  them- 
selves mainly  on  technical  grounds,  and  not  at  all  to  enter  into 
their  general  aesthetic  attitude.  The  feeling  of  contemporary 
painters  and  critics  (except,  of  course,  historical  critics)  for 
Raphael's  genius  is  the  opposite  of  cordial.  We  are  out  of 
touch  with  the  "Disputa,"  with  angels  and  prophets  seated  on 
clouds,  with  halos  and  wings,  with  such  inconsistencies  as  the 
"Doge  praying"  in  a  picture  of  the  marriage  of  St.  Catherine, 
with  the  mystic  marriage  itself.  Raphael's  grace  of  line  and 
suave  space-fiUing  shapes  are  mainly  what  we  think  of;  the 
rest  we  call  convention.  We  are  become  Uteral  and  exacting,  ad- 
dicted to  the  pedantry  of  the  prescriptive,  if  not  of  the  prosaic. 
Take  such  a  picture  as  M.  Edouard  Detaille's  "Le  Reve," 

[19] 


FRENCH  ART 

which  won  him  so  much  applause  a  few  years  ago.  M.  Detaille 
is  an  irreproachable  realist,  and  may  do  what  he  likes  in  the 
way  of  the  materially  impossible  with  impunity.  Sleeping  sol- 
diers, without  a  gaiter-button  lacking,  bivouacking  on  the 
ground  amid  stacked  arms  whose  bayonets  would  prick;  above 
them  in  the  heavens  the  clash  of  contending  ghostly  armies — 
wraiths  born  of  the  sleepers'  dreams.  That  we  are  in  touch 
with.  No  one  would  object  to  it  except  under  penalty  of  being 
scouted  as  pitiably  literal.  Yet  the  scheme  is  as  thoroughly 
conventional — that  is  to  say,  it  is  as  closely  based  on  hypothe- 
sis universally  assumed  for  the  moment — as  Lebrun's  "Tri- 
umph of  Alexander."  The  latter  is  as  much  a  true  expression 
of  an  ideal  as  Detaille's  picture.  It  is  an  ideal  now  become 
more  conventional,  undoubtedly,  but  it  is  as  clearly  an  ideal 
and  as  clearly  genuine.  The  only  point  I  wish  to  make  is,  that 
Lebrun's  painting — Louis  Quatorze  painting — is  not  the  per- 
functory thing  we  are  apt  to  assume  it  to  be.  That  is  not  the 
same  thing,  I  hope,  as  maintaining  that  M.  Bouguereau  is 
significant  rather  than  insipid.  Lebrun  was  assuredly  not  a 
strikingly  original  painter.  His  crowds  of  warriors  bear  a  much 
closer  resemblance  to  Raphael's  "Battle  of  Constantine  and 
Maxentius"  than  the  "Transfiguration"  of  the  Vatican  does 
to  Giotto's,  aside  fi^om  the  important  circumstance  that  the 
difference  in  the  latter  instance  shows  development,  while  the 
former  illustrates  mainly  an  enfeebled  variation.  But  there  is 
unquestionably  something  of  Lebrun  in  Lebrun's  work — some- 
thing typical  of  the  age  whose  artistic  spirit  he  so  completely 
expressed. 

[20] 


CHARDIN 
THE  BLESSING 


VT, 


wliieh  won  him  so  mw 
is  an  irreproachable  re. 
way  of  the  materially 
'  'thout  a        ^ 

groiuia  amid  sta 
them  in  the  hei^ 
wraiths  bom  oi  lae  siecpt 
with.  No  one  would  obi 
scouted  as  pitiably  ^ 


conv< 

msumv'. 
uiriph  of 
of  an  iii 

1BV 


thnt 


-if,  ivi.  Detaille 
le  Hkes  in  the 
.  Sleeping  sol- 
•eking  on  the 
1  prick;  above 


U-UCil 

1-  .  1   .  _- 


ypothe- 

-Tri- 

ression 

l)eeome 

m  ideal 

that 


me 

u  is 

wa^  Ass^urttiiy  not  a 

r-s  bear  a  much 

cl«*scr  ce  to  ICiphrtU:*  *  Uiitiiii  at  Constantine  and 

JMaxentius     th^m  the  *'Transfigufatkm  "  of  the  Vatican  does 


to  Giotto's,  aside  from  the  i 
difference  in  th^  instap 

•r  illustrate 

>nably  somethmg  • 
•  • :  <  typical  of  the  age  w^hose  a 


it  circumstance  that  the 

?velopment,  while  the 

ariation.  But  there  is 

i  .ebrun  s  work — some- 

i)irit  he  so  completely 


[20  J 


/TICIHAH^ 
yAlUKiAH  HHT 


»•     »     *   J      1 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
To  perceive  that  Louis  Quatorze  art  is  not  all  convention  it 
is  only  necessary  to  remember  that  Lesueur  is  to  be  bracketed 
with  Lebrun.  All  the  sympathy  which  the  Anglo-Saxon  tem- 
perament withholds  from  the  histrionism  of  Lebrun  is  instinc- 
tively accorded  to  his  gentle  and  graceful  contemporary,  who 
has  been  called^faute  de  mieux,  of  course — the  French  Ra- 
phael. Really  Lesueur  is  as  nearly  conventional  as  Lebrun.  He 
has  at  any  rate  far  less  force;  and  even  if  we  may  maintain 
that  he  had  a  more  individual  point  of  view,  his  works  are 
assuredly  more  monotonous  to  the  scrutinizing  sense.  It  is 
impossible  to  recall  any  one  of  the  famous  San  Bruno  series 
with  any  particularity,  or,  except  in  subject,  to  distinguish 
these  in  the  memory  from  the  sweet  and  soft  "St.  Scholastica" 
in  the  Salon  Carre,  With  more  sapience  and  less  sensitiveness, 
Bouguereau  is  Lesueur 's  true  successor,  to  say  which  is  cer- 
tainly not  to  affirm  a  very  saHent  originality  of  the  older 
painter.  He  had  a  great  deal  of  very  exquisite  feeling  for  what 
is  refined  and  elevated,  but  clearly  it  is  a  moral  rather  than  an 
aesthetic  deUcacy  that  he  exhibits,  and  sesthetically  he  exercises 
his  sweeter  and  more  sympathetic  sensibihty  within  the  same 
rigid  limits  which  circumscribe  that  of  Lebrun.  He  has,  indeed, 
less  invention,  less  imagination,  less  sense  of  composition,  less 
wealth  of  detail,  less  elaborateness,  no  greater  concentration  or 
sense  of  effect;  and  though  his  color  is  more  agreeable,  perhaps, 
in  hue,  it  gets  its  tone  through  the  absence  of  variety  rather 
than  through  juxtapositions  and  balances.  The  truth  is,  that 
both  equally  illustrate  the  classic  spirit,  the  spirit  of  their  age 
par  excellence  and  of  French  painting  in  general,  in  a  supreme 

[21] 


FRENCH  ART 

degree,  though  the  conformabiUty  of  the  one  is  positive  and  of 
the  other  passive,  so  to  say;  and  that  neither  illustrates  quite 
the  subserviency  to  the  conventional  which  we,  who  have  un- 
doubtedly just  as  many  conventions  of  our  own,  are  wont  to 
ascribe  to  them,  and  to  Lebrun  in  particular. 


IV 


Fanciful  as  the  Louis  Quinze  art  seems,  by  contrast  with 
that  of  Louis  Quatorze,  it,  too,  is  essentially  classic.  It  is  free 
enough — no  one,  I  think,  would  deny  that — but  it  is  very 
far  from  individual  in  any  important  sense.  It  has,  to  be  sure, 
more  personal  feeling  than  that  of  Lesueur  or  Lebrun.  The 
artist's  susceptibility  seems  to  come  to  the  surface  for  the  first 
time.  Watteau,  Fragonard — Fragonard  especially,  the  exqui- 
site and  impudent — are  as  gay,  as  spontaneous,  as  careless,  as 
vivacious  as  Boldini.  Boucher's  goddesses  and  cherubs,  disport- 
ing themselves  in  graceful  abandonment  on  happily  disposed 
clouds,  outlined  in  cumulus  masses  against  unvarying  azure, 
are  as  unrestrained  and  independent  of  prescription  as  Monti- 
ceUi's  figures.  Lancret,  Pater,  Nattier,  and  Van  Loo — the  very 
names  suggest  not  merely  freedom  but  a  sportive  and  aban- 
doned license.  But  in  what  a  narrow  round  they  move!  How 
their  imaginativeness  is  hmited  by  their  artificiahty!  What  a 
talent,  what  a  genius  they  have  for  artificiahty.  It  is  the  era 
par  eoocellence  of  dilettantism,  and  nothing  is  less  romantic 
than  dilettantism.  Their  evident  feeling — and  evidently  genu- 
ine feeling — is  feehng  for  the  factitious,  for  the  manufactured, 

[  22  ] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

for  what  the  French  call  the  confectionne.  Their  romantic 
quahty  is  to  that  of  the  modern  Fontainebleau  group  as  the 
exquisite  vers  de  society  of  Mr.  Austin  Dobson,  say,  is  to  the 
turbulent  yet  profound  romanticism  of  Heine  or  Burns.  Every 
picture  painted  by  them  would  go  as  well  on  a  fan  as  in  a 
frame.  All  their  material  is  traditional.  They  simply  handle  it 
as  enfants  terribles.  Intellectually  speaking,  they  are  painters 
of  a  silver  age.  Of  ideas  they  have  almost  none.  They  are  as 
barren  of  invention  in  any  large  sense  as  if  they  were  imitators 
instead  of,  in  a  sense,  the  originators  of  a  new  phase.  Their 
originaUty  is  arrived  at  rather  through  exclusion  than  discov- 
ery. They  simply  drop  pedantry  and  exult  in  irresponsibility. 
They  are  hardly  even  a  school. 

Yet  they  have,  one  and  all,  in  greater  or  less  degree,  that 
distinct  quahty  of  charm  which  is  eternally  incompatible  with 
routine.  They  are  as  little  constructive  as  the  age  itself,  as  any- 
thing that  we  mean  when  we  use  the  epithet  Louis  Quinze. 
Of  everything  thus  indicated  one  predicates  at  once  uncon- 
sciousness, the  momentum  of  antecedent  thought  modified  by 
the  ease  bom  of  habit;  the  carelessness  due  to  having  one's 
thinking  done  for  one  and  the  license  of  proceeding  fancifully, 
whimsically,  even  freakishly,  once  the  lines  and  limits  of  one's 
action  have  been  settled  by  more  laborious,  more  conscientious 
philosophy  than  in  such  circumstances  one  feels  disposed  to 
fi*ame  for  one's  self.  There  is  no  break  with  the  Louis  Quatorze 
things,  not  a  symptom  of  revolt;  only,  after  them  the  deluge! 
But  out  of  this  very  condition  of  things,  and  out  of  this  atti- 
tude of  mind,  arises  a  new  art,  or  rather  a  new  phase  of  art, 

[  23  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

essentially  classic,  as  I  said,  but  nevertheless  imbued  with  a 
character  of  its  own,  and  this  character  distinctly  charming. 
Wherein  does  the  charm  consist?  In  two  qualities,  I  think, 
one  of  which  has  not  hitherto  appeared  in  French  painting, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  art  whatever,  namely,  what  we  understand 
by  cleverness  as  a  distinct  element  in  treatment — and  color. 
Color  is  very  prominent  nowadays  in  all  writing  about  art, 
though  recently  it  has  given  place,  in  the  fashion  of  the  day, 
to  "values"  and  the  reahstic  representation  of  natural  objects 
as  the  painter  s  proper  aim.  What  precisely  is  meant  by  color 
would  be  difficult,  perhaps,  to  define.  A  warmer  general  tone 
than  is  achieved  by  painters  mainly  occupied  with  line  and 
mass  is  possibly  what  is  oftenest  meant  by  amateurs  who  pro- 
fess themselves  fond  of  color.  At  all  events,  the  Louis  Quinze 
painters,  especially  Watteau,  Fragonard,  and  Pater — and  Bou- 
cher has  a  great  deal  of  the  same  feeling — were  sensitive  to 
that  vibration  of  atmosphere  that  blends  local  hues  into  the 
ensemble  that  produces  tone.  The  ensemble  of  their  tints  is  what 
we  mean  by  color.  Since  the  Venetians  this  note  had  not  ap- 
peared. They  constitute,  thus,  a  sort  of  romantic  interregnum 
— still  very  classic,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view — be- 
tween the  classicism  of  Lebrun  and  the  still  greater  severity 
of  David.  Nothing  in  the  evolution  of  French  painting  is  more 
interesting  than  this  reverberation  of  Tintoretto  and  Tiepolo. 

By  cleverness,  as  exhibited  by  the  Louis  Quinze  painters, 
I  do  not  mean  mere  technical  ability,  but  something  more  in- 
clusive, something  relating  quite  as  much  to  attitude  of  mind 
as  to  dexterity  of  treatment.  They  conceive  as  cleverly  as  they 

[24] 


DAVID 
THE  CORONATION  OF  NAPOLEON  —  DETAIL 


FRENCH  ART 

illy  classic,  as- 1  said,  but  nevertheless  imbued  with  a 
^cter  of  its  own,  and  this  character  distinctly  channing. 
iiopein  does  the  charm  consist?  In  two  qualities,  I  think, 
uae  of  which  has  not  hitherto  appeared  in  French  painting, 
or,  indeed,  in  any  art  whatever,  namely,  what  we  understand 
by  cleverness  as  a  distinct  e^*""»^^^t  in  treatment — and  color. 
Color  i$  verv  i»r.tni;v...r.f  *^  ;r>  ^11  writing  about  art, 

'^^'*  fashion  of  the  day, 


thot^**-^^ 
to 

as  i 


vi.;. 


r,:.-. 


general  tone 
with  line  and 
?ateurs  who  pro- 
he  Louis  (Juinze 
and  Bou- 
sitive  to 
into  the 
u:.,  I  lie  cfffitntmL^  m,  uitjiT  tiiits  is  what 
^t,     Venetians  this  iK)te  had  not  ap- 
uii>iULucc,  iiju  ,  [X  sort  of  romantic  interregnum 
^c,  from  an  intellectual  point  of  view — he- 
rn of  L^brun       '  'he  still  greater  severity 
';  the  evr'   '         >i  tVench  painting  is  more 
'  i  of  Tintoretto  and  Tiepolo. 

Mie  Louis  Quinze  painters, 
11  abmty,  but  something  more  in- 
clusive, somethmg  reuumg  quite  as  much  to  attitude  of  mind 
•i  |4> :dei:terity  of  tnsi^bijient  They  conceive  as  cleverly  as  thex 

[24] 


tweeii   ' 
of  tiaviu.  i\i>t 
mteresting  thii 
By  cieverne 
I  ^  not  mean 


aivAci 


i 


•       IV       •        » 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
execute.  There  is  a  sense  of  confidence  and  capability  in  the 
way  they  view,  as  well  as  in  the  way  they  handle,  their  light 
material.  They  know  it  thoroughly,  and  are  thoroughly  at  one 
with  it.  And  they  exploit  it  with  a  serene  air  of  satisfaction, 
as  if  it  were  the  only  material  in  the  world  worth  handling. 
Indeed,  it  is  exquisitely  adapted  to  their  talent.  So  little  sig- 
nificance has  it  that  one  may  say  it  exists  merely  to  be  cleverly 
dealt  with,  to  be  represented,  distributed,  compared,  and  gen- 
erally utihzed  solely  with  reference  to  the  display  of  the  artist's 
jaunty  skill.  It  is,  one  may  say,  merely  the  raw  material  for 
the  production  of  an  effect,  and  an  effect  demanding  only  what 
we  mean  by  cleverness ;  no  knowledge  and  love  of  nature,  no 
prolonged  study,  no  acquaintance  with  the  antique,  for  exam- 
ple, no  philosophy  whatever — unless  poco-curantism  be  called 
a  philosophy,  which  eminently  it  is  not.  To  be  adequate  to 
the  requirements — rarely  very  exacting  in  any  case — made  of 
one,  never  to  show  stupidity,  to  have  a  great  deal  of  taste  and 
an  instinctive  feeling  for  what  is  elegant  and  refined,  to  abhoij 
pedantry  and  take  gayety  at  once  hghtly  and  seriously,  and! 
beyond  this  to  take  no  thought,  is  to  be  clever;  and  in  this 
sense  the  Louis  Quinze  painters  are  the  first,  as  they  certainly 
are  the  typical,  clever  artists. 

In  Louis  Quinze  art  the  subject  is  more  than  effaced  to 
give  free  swing  to  technical  cleverness;  it  is  itself  contributory 
to  such  cleverness,  and  really  a  part  of  it.  The  artists  evidently 
look  on  life,  as  they  paint  their  pictures,  as  the  web  whereon 
to  sketch  exhibitions  of  skill  in  the  composition  of  sensation- 
provoking  combinations — combinations,  thus,  provoking  sen- 

[25] 


FRENCH  ART 

sations  of  the  lightest  and  least  substantial  kind.  When  you 
stand  before  one  of  Fragonard's  bewitching  models,  modishly 
modified  into  a  great — or  rather  a  little — lady,  you  not  only 
note  the  color — full  of  tone  on  the  one  hand  and  of  variety 
on  the  other,  besides  exhibiting  the  happiest  selective  quality 
in  warm  and  yet  delicate  hues  and  tints;  you  not  only,  further- 
more, observe  the  clever  touch  just  poised  between  suggestion 
and  expression,  coquettishly  suppressing  a  detail  here,  and  em- 
phasizing a  characteristic  there;  you  feel,  in  addition,  that  the 
entire  object  floats  airily  in  an  atmosphere  of  cleverness;  that 
it  is  but  a  bit,  an  example,  a  miniature  type  of  an  environ- 
ment wholly  attuned  to  the  note  of  cleverness — of  compe- 
tence, facility,  grace,  elegance,  and  other  abstract  but  not  at 
all  abstruse  qualities,  quite  unrelated  to  what,  in  any  profound 
sense,  at  least,  is  concrete  and  vitally  significant.  Artificiality 
so  permeated  the  Louis  Quinze  epoch,  indeed,  that  one  may 
say  that  nature  itself  was  artificial — that  is  to  say,  all  the  na- 
ture Louis  Quinze  painters  had  to  paint;  at  least  all  they  could 
have  been  called  upon  to  think  of  painting.  What  a  distinc- 
tion is,  after  all,  theirs!  To  have  created  out  of  nothing,  or 
next  to  nothing,  something  charming,  and  enduringly  charm- 
ing; something  of  a  truly  classic  inspiration  without  depen- 
dence at  bottom  on  the  real  and  the  actual;  something  as 
little  indebted  to  facts  and  things  as  a  fairy  tale,  and  withal 
marked  by  such  quahties  as  color  and  cleverness  in  so  eminent 
a  degree. 

The  Louis  Quinze  painters  may  be  said,  indeed,  to  have  had 
the  romantic  temperament  with  the  classic  inspiration.  They 

[26] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

have  audacity  rather  than  freedom,  license  modified  by  strict 
limitation  to  the  lines  within  which  it  is  exercised.  But  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  limitation  is  more  conspicuous  in 
their  charmingly  irresponsible  works  than  is,  essentially  speak- 
ing, their  irresponsibility  itself.  They  never  give  their  imagi- 
nation free  play.  Sportive  and  spontaneous  as  it  appears,  it  is 
equally  clear  that  its  activities  are  bounded  by  conservatory 
confines.  Watteau,  born  on  the  Flemish  border,  is  almost  an 
exception.  Temperament  in  him  seems  constantly  on  the  verge 
of  conquering  tradition  and  environment.  Now  and  then  he 
seems  to  be  on  the  point  of  emancipation,  and  one  expects  to 
come  upon  some  work  in  which  he  has  expressed  himself  and 
attested  his  ideality.  But  one  is  as  constantly  disappointed.  His 
color  and  his  cleverness  are  always  admirable  and  winning,  but 
his  import  is  perversely — almost  bewitchingly — slight.  What 
was  he  thinking  of?  one  asks,  before  his  delightful  canvases; 
and  one's  conclusion  inevitably  is,  certainly  as  near  nothing  at 
all  as  can  be  consistent  with  so  much  charm  and  so  much  real 
power.  As  to  Watteau,  one's  last  thought  is  of  what  he  would 
have  been  in  a  different  aesthetic  atmosphere,  in  an  atmosphere 
that  would  have  stimulated  his  really  romantic  temperament 
to  extra-traditional  flights,  instead  of  confining  it  within  the 
inexorable  boundaries  of  classic  custom;  an  atmosphere  favor- 
able to  the  free  exercise  of  his  adorable  fancy,  instead  of  rigor- 
ously insistent  on  conforming  this,  so  far  as  might  be,  to 
customary  canons,  and,  at  any  rate,  restricting  its  exercise  to 
material  a  la  mode,  A  little  landscape  in  the  La  Gaze  collec- 
tion in  the  Louvre,  whose  romantic  and  truly  poetic  feeUng 

[27] 


FRENCH  ART 

agreeably  pierces  through  its  elegance,  is  eloquent  of  such 
reflections. 


With  Greuze  and  Chardin  we  are  supposed  to  get  into  so  dif- 
ferent a  sphere  of  thought  and  feehng  that  the  change  has 
been  called  a  **return  to  nature" — that  "return  to  nature"  of 
which  we  hear  so  much  in  histories  of  literature  as  well  as 
of  the  plastic  arts.  The  notion  is  not  quite  sound.  Chardin 
is  a  painter  who  seems  to  me,  at  least,  to  stand  quite  apart, 
quite  alone,  in  the  development  of  French  painting,  whereas 
there  could  not  be  a  more  marked  instance  of  the  inherence 
of  the  classic  spirit  in  the  French  sesthetic  nature  than  is  fur- 
nished by  Greuze.  The  first  French  painter  of  genre,  in  the 
full  modem  sense  of  the  term,  the  first  true  interpreter  of 
scenes  from  humble  life — of  lowly  incident  and  familiar  situa- 
tions, of  broken  jars  and  paternal  curses,  and  buxom  girls 
and  precocious  children — he  certainly  is.  There  is  certainly 
nothing  Regence  about  him.  But  the  beginning  and  end  of 
Greuze's  art  is  convention.  He  is  less  imaginative,  less  ro- 
mantic, less  real  than  the  painting  his  replaced.  That  was  at 
least  a  mirror  of  the  ideals,  the  spirit,  the  society,  of  the  day. 
A  Louis  Quinze  fan  is  a  genuine  and  spontaneous  product  of 
a  free  and  elastic  assthetic  impulse  beside  one  of  his  stereo- 
typed sentimentalities. 

The  truth  is,  Greuze  is  as  sentimental  as  a  bullfinch,  but 
he  has  hardly  a  natural  note  in  his  gamut.  Nature  is  not  only 
never  his  model,  she  is  never  his  inspiration.  He  is  distinctively 

[28] 


INGRES 
FAMILY  GROUP 


FRENCH  ART 

through  its  elegance,  is  el  .ui  put  o^ 


»^;-3t-*-^K.  U»»^r  j: 


I       a  Greuze  and  Chardin  we  are  supposed  to  get  mto  so 
fcn-^.t.  a  sphere  of  thought  and  fe^-^h^^r  41, .,t  the  change 
■en  called  a  **^->^«>»^^  *-'^  *  «f,rr.>**  .  vum  to  nature 

which  we  ^-  ^  ->    literature  as  well 

of  the  pi  *  i.:rv  ^'  ''''■  quite' sound    rii.^.- 

is  k  pa-^*-  --  '-'^^  '  -  '  ^^"''^  ({^  -  -t 

'  I  ting,  whei 

H>c  inheres 


v.-  .  ^i^e"-"^'^'-*-^''".  ^" 

-^'  -nd^fanH..*.-. 

'+»v1     HtlXO; 

:'S      CCi' Vii*ii»  »  ? 

•  ^u^  and  end  ^^^ 

.  siigin^ative,  less  i- 

Il.lilC    1 

.  icplaced.  That  was  "' 

uie  ideal- 

the  societ'    ' "  ^^  •" 

/v..    ;,..   .    . 

spontanea  u  >  |  ? «  ^^i  ^ . 

:de  one  of  his  sterc 

t 

.1    JU'QUIS.  WU' 

:i  trte  wad  eia^r 
ty|>ed  sentiment 

"truth  '  atiii  ris  a  bullfinch, 

nc  ii.i :  hardly  a  nat*  e  m  ui-.  yaraut.  Nature  is  not  < 

his  tnodel,  she  i^  never  his  inspiration.  He  is  distinctiv 

•    rs8] 


TJOHi)  Y.IIMAH 


V     ■' 


Uif 


¥-h\  i>^ 


^' 


^ 


A- 


■^^ 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
a  literary  painter;  but  this  description  is  not  minute  enough. 
His  conventions  are  those  not  merely  of  the  litterateur,  but  of 
the  extremely  conventional  litterateur.  An  artless  platitude  is 
really  more  artificial  than  a  clever  paradox;  it  doesn't  even 
cast  a  side-light  on  the  natural  material  with  which  it  deals. 
Greuze's  genre  is  really  a  genre  of  his  own — his  own  and  that 
of  kindred  spirits  since.  It  is  as  systematic  and  detached  as  the 
art  of  Poussin.  The  forms  it  embodies  merely  have  more  na- 
tural, more  famihar  associations.  But  compare  one  of  his  com- 
positions with  those  of  the  little  Dutch  and  Flemish  masters, 
for  truth,  feehng,  nature  handled  after  her  own  suggestions, 
instead  of  within  limits  and  on  lines  imposed  upon  her  from 
without.  By  the  side  of  Van  Ostade  or  Brauer,  for  example, 
one  of  Greuze's  bits  of  humble  life  seems  like  an  academic 
composition,  quite  out  of  touch  with  its  subject,  and,  except 
for  its  art,  absolutely  lifeless  and  insipid. 

In  a  word,  his  choice  of  subjects,  of  genre,  is  really  no  dis- 
guise at  all  of  his  essential  classicality.  Both  ideally  and  tech- 
nically, in  the  way  he  conceives  and  the  way  he  handles  his 
subject,  he  is  only  superficially  romantic  or  real.  His  literature, 
so  to  speak,  is  as  conventional  as  his  composition.  One  may 
compare  him  to  Hogarth,  though  both  as  a  moralist  and  a 
technician  a  longo  intervallo,  of  course.  He  is  assuredly  not  to 
be  depreciated.  His  scheme  of  color  is  clear  if  not  rich,  his 
handling  is  frank  if  not  unctuous  or  subtly  interesting,  his 
composition  is  careful  and  clever,  and  some  of  his  heads  are 
admirably  painted — painted  with  a  genuine  feehng  for  quahty. 
But  his  merits  as  well  as  his  faihngs  are  decidedly  academic, 

[29] 


FRENCH  ART 

and  as  a  romanticist  he  is  really  masquerading.  He  is  much 
nearer  to  Fragonard  than  he  is  to  Edouard  Frere  even. 

Chardin,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  one  distinguished  excep- 
tion to  the  general  character  of  French  art  in  the  artificial  and 
inteUectual  eighteenth  century.  He  is  as  natural  as  a  Dutch- 
man, and  as  modern  as  Vollon.  As  you  walk  through  the  French 
galleries  of  the  Louvre,  of  all  the  canvases  antedating  our  own 
era  his  are  those  toward  which  one  feels  the  most  sympathetic 
attraction,  I  think.  You  note  at  once  his  individuality,  his  inde- 
pendence of  schools  and  traditions,  his  personal  point  of  view, 
his  preoccupation  with  the  object  as  he  perceives  it.  Nothing 
is  more  noteworthy  in  the  history  of  French  art,  in  the  current 
of  which  the  subordination  of  the  individual  genius  to  the  gen- 
eral consensus  is  so  much  the  rule,  than  the  occasional  excep- 
tion— now  of  a  single  man,  now  of  a  group  of  men,  destined 
to  become  in  its  turn  a  school — the  occasional  accent  or  inter- 
ruption of  the  smooth  course  of  slow  development  on  the  lines 
of  academic  precedent.  Tyrannical  as  academic  precedent  is 
(and  nowhere  has  it  been  more  tyrannical  than  in  French 
painting)  the  general  interest  in  aesthetic  subjects  which  a  gen- 
eral subscription  to  academic  precedent  implies  is  certainly  to 
be  credited  with  the  force  and  genuineness  of  the  occasional 
protestant  against  the  very  system  that  has  been  powerful 
enough  to  popularize  indefinitely  the  subject  both  of  subscrip- 
tion and  of  revolt.  Without  some  such  systematic  propagand- 
ism  of  the  aesthetic  cultus  as  from  the  first  the  French  Insti- 
tute has  been  characterized  by,  it  is  very  doubtful  if,  in  the 
complexity  of  modern  society,  the  interest  in  aesthetics  can 

[30] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

ever  be  made  wide  enough,  universal  enough,  to  spread  be- 
yond those  immediately  and  professionally  concerned  with  it. 
The  immense  impetus  given  to  this  interest  by  a  central  organ 
of  authority,  that  dignifies  the  subject  with  which  it  occupies 
itself  and  draws  attention  to  its  value  and  its  importance,  has, 
a  priori,  the  manifest  effect  of  leading  persons  to  occupy  them- 
selves with  it,  also,  who  otherwise  would  never  have  had  their 
attention  drawn  to  it.  It  would  scarcely  be  an  exaggeration 
to  say,  in  other  words,  that  but  for  the  Institute  there  would 
not  be  a  tithe  of  the  number  of  names  now  on  the  roll  of 
French  artists.  When  art  is  in  the  air — and  nothing  so  much 
as  an  academy  produces  this  condition — the  chances  of  the 
production  of  even  an  unacademic  artist  are  immensely  in- 
creased. 

So  in  the  midst  of  the  Mignardise  of  Louis  Quinze  painting 
it  is  only  superficially  surprising  to  find  a  painter  of  the  origi- 
nal force  and  flavor  of  Chardin.  His  wholesome  and  yet  subtle 
variations  from  the  art  a  la  mode  of  his  epoch  might  have  been 
painted  in  the  Holland  of  his  day,  or  in  our  day  anywhere  that 
art  so  good  as  Chardin's  can  be  produced,  so  far  as  subject  and 
moral  and  technical  attitude  are  concerned.  They  are,  in  quite 
accentuated  contra-distinction  from  the  works  of  Greuze,  thor- 
oughly in  the  spirit  of  simplicity  and  directness.  One  notes  in 
them  at  once  that  moral  simphcity  which  predisposes  every  one 
to  sympathetic  appreciation.  The  special  ideas  of  his  time  seem 
to  pass  him  by  unmoved.  He  has  no  conmiunity  of  interest 
with  them.  While  he  was  painting  his  still  hfe  and  domestic 
genre,  the  whole  fantastic  whirl  of  Louis  Quinze  society,  with 

[31] 


FRENCH  ART 

its  aesthetic  standards  and  accomplishments — accomplishments 
and  standards  that  imposed  themselves  everywhere  else — was 
in  agitated  movement  around  him  without  in  the  least  affect- 
ing his  serene  tranquillity,  his  almost  sturdy  composure.  There 
can  rarely  have  been  such  an  instance  as  he  affords  of  an 
artist's  selecting  from  his  environment  just  those  things  his 
own  genius  needed,  and  rejecting  just  what  would  have  ham- 
pered or  distracted  him.  He  is  as  sane,  as  unsentimental,  as 
truthful  and  unpretending  as  the  most  hteral  and  unimagina- 
tive Dutchman  of  his  time  or  before  it ;  but  he  has  also  that 
feeling  for  style,  and  that  instinct  for  avoiding  the  common 
and  unclean  which  always  seem  to  prevent  French  painters 
from  "sinking  with  their  subject,"  as  Dutch  painters  have 
been  said  to  do.  He  seems  never  to  let  himself  go  either  in 
the  direction  of  Greuze's  literary  and  sentimental  manipulation 
of  his  homely  material,  or  in  the  direction  of  supine  satisfac- 
tion with  this  material,  unreUeved  and  unelevated  by  an  indi- 
vidual point  of  view,  illustrated  by  the  Brauers  and  Steens  and 
Ostades.  One  perceives  that  what  he  cared  for  was  really  art 
itself,  for  the  aesthetic  aspect  and  significance  of  the  life  he 
painted.  Affectionate  as  his  interest  in  it  evidently  was,  he  as 
evidently  thought  of  its  artistic  potentiaUties,  its  capabihty  of 
being  treated  with  refinement  and  delicacy,  and  of  being  made 
to  serve  the  ends  of  beauty  equally  well  with  the  convention- 
ally beautiful  material  of  his  fan-painting  contemporaries.  He 
looked  at  the  world  very  originally  through  and  over  those 
round,  horn-bowed  spectacles  of  his,  with  a  very  shrewd  and 
very  kindly  and  sympathetic  glance,  too;  quite  untinctured 

[  32  ] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
with  prejudice  or  even  predisposition.  One  can  read  his  artistic 
isolation  in  his  countenance  with  a  very  little  exercise  of  fancy. 


VI 


It  is  the  fashion  to  think  of  David  as  the  painter  of  the 
Revolution  and  the  Empire.  Really  he  is  Louis  Seize.  His- 
torical critics  say  that  he  had  no  fewer  than  four  styles,  but 
apart  from  obvious  labels  they  would  be  puzzled  to  tell  to 
which  of  these  styles  any  individual  picture  of  his  belongs. 
He  was  from  the  beginning  extremely,  perhaps  absurdly, 
enamoured  of  the  antique,  and  we  usually  associate  addiction 
to  the  antique  with  the  Revolutionary  period.  But  perhaps 
poMtics  are  slower  than  the  aesthetic  movement;  David's  view 
of  art  and  practice  of  painting  were  fixed  unalterably  under 
the  reign  of  philosophism.  Philosophism,  as  Carlyle  calls  it,  is 
the  ruling  spirit  of  his  work.  Long  before  the  Revolution — in 
1774 — he  painted  what  is  still  his  most  characteristic  picture 
— "The  Oath  of  the  Horatii."  His  art  developed  and  grew 
systematized  under  the  Republic  and  the  Empire ;  but  Napo- 
leon, whose  genius  crystalUzed  the  elements  of  everything  in 
all  fields  of  intellectual  effort  with  which  he  occupied  himself, 
did  Uttle  but  formally  "consecrate,"  in  French  phrase,  the  art 
of  the  painter  of  "The  Oath  of  the  Horatii"  and  the  originator 
and  designer  of  the  "Fete"  of  Robespierre's  "Etre  Supreme." 
Spite  of  David's  subserviency  and  that  of  others,  he  left  paint- 
ing very  much  where  he  found  it.  And  he  found  it  in  a  state 
of  reaction  against  the  Louis  Quinze  standards.  The  break 

[  33  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

with  these,  and  with  everything  Regence,  came  with  Louis 
Seize,  Chardin  being  a  notable  exception  and  standing  quite 
apart  from  the  general  drift  of  the  French  sesthetic  movement; 
and  Greuze  being  only  a  pseudo-romanticist,  and  his  work  a 
variant  of,  rather  than  reactionary  from,  the  artificiahty  of  his 
day.  Before  painting  could  "return  to  nature,"  before  the  idea 
and  inspiration  of  true  romanticism  could  be  bom,  a  reaction 
in  the  direction  of  severity  after  the  artificial  yet  irresponsible 
riot  of  the  Louis  Quinze  painters  was  naturally  and  logically 
inevitable.  Painting  was  modified  in  the  same  measure  with 
every  other  expression  in  the  general  recueillement  that  fol- 
lowed the  extravagance  in  all  social  and  intellectual  fields  of 
the  Louis  Quinze  epoch.  But  in  becoming  more  chaste  it  did 
not  become  less  classical.  Indeed,  so  far  as  severity  is  a  trait  of 
classicality — and  it  is  only  an  associated  not  an  essential  trait 
of  it — painting  became  more  classical.  It  threw  off  its  extrava- 
gances without  swerving  from  the  artificial  character  of  its 
inspiration.  Art  in  general  seemed  content  with  substituting 
the  straight  line  for  the  curve — a  change  from  Louis  Quinze 
to  Louis  Seize  that  is  very  familiar  even  to  persons  who  note 
the  transitions  between  the  two  epochs  only  in  the  respective 
furniture  of  each ;  a  Louis  Quinze  chair  or  mirror,  for  example, 
having  a  flowing  outhne,  whereas  a  Louis  Seize  equivalent  is 
more  rigid  and  rectilinear. 

David  is  artificial,  it  is  to  be  pointed  out,  only  in  his  en- 
semble. In  detail  he  is  real  enough.  And  he  always  has  an 
ensemble.  His  compositions,  as  compositions,  are  admirable. 
They  make  a  total  impression,  and  with  a  vigor  and  vividness 

[34] 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 

that  belong  to  few  constructed  pictures.  The  canvas  is  always 
penetrated  with  David — illustrates  as  a  whole,  and  with  com- 
pleteness and  comparative  flawlessness,  his  point  of  view,  his 
conception  of  the  subject.  This,  of  course,  is  the  academic  point 
of  view,  the  academic  conception.  But,  as  I  say,  his  detail  is 
surprisingly  truthful  and  studied.  His  picture — which  is  always 
nevertheless  a  picture — is  as  inconceivable,  as  traditional  in  its 
inspiration,  as  factitious  as  you  hke ;  his  figures  are  always  sapi- 
ently  and  often  happily  exact.  His  portraits  are  absolutely  vital 
characterizations.  And  in  general  his  sculptural  sense,  his  self- 
control,  his  perfect  power  of  expressing  what  he  deemed  worth 
expressing,  are  really  what  are  noteworthy  in  his  pictures,  far 
more  than  their  monotonous  coloration  and  the  coldness  and 
unreality  of  the  pictures  themselves,  considered  as  moving, 
real,  or  significant  compositions.  In  admiration  of  these  it  is 
impossible  for  us  nowadays  to  go  as  far  as  even  the  romanti- 
cist, though  extremely  catholic,  Gautier.  They  leave  us  cold. 
We  have  a  wholly  different  ideal,  which  in  order  to  interest  us 
powerfully  painting  must  illustrate — an  ideal  of  more  perti- 
nence and  appositeness  to  our  own  moods  and  manner  of 
thought  and  feeling. 

Ingres,  a  painter  of  considerably  less  force,  I  think,  comes 
much  nearer  to  doing  this.  He  is  more  elastic,  less  devoted  to 
system.  Without  being  as  free,  as  sensitive  to  impressions  as 
we  like  to  see  an  artist  of  his  powers,  he  escapes  pedantry.  His 
subject  is  not  "The  Rape  of  the  Sabines,"  but  "The  Apothe- 
osis of  Homer,"  academic  but  not  academically  fatuitous.  To 
follow  the  inspiration  of  the  Vatican  Stanze  in  the  selection 

[35] 


FRENCH  ART 

and  treatment  of  ideal  subjects  is  to  be  far  more  closely  in 
touch  with  contemporary  feeling  as  to  what  is  legitimate  and 
proper  in  imaginative  painting,  than  to  pictorialize  an  actual 
event  with  a  systematic  artificiality  and  conformity  to  abstrac- 
tions that  would  surely  have  made  the  sculptor  of  the  Trajan 
column  smile.  Yet  I  would  rather  have  "The  Rape  of  the 
Sabines"  within  visiting  distance  than  "The  Apotheosis  of 
Homer."  It  is  better,  at  least  soHder,  painting.  The  painter, 
however  dominated  by  his  theory,  is  more  the  master  of  its 
illustration  than  Ingres  is  of  the  justification  of  his  admiration 
for  Raphael.  The  "Homer"  attempts  more,  but  it  is  naturally 
not  as  successful  in  getting  as  effective  a  unity  out  of  its 
greater  complexity.  It  is  in  his  less  ambitious  pictures  that  the 
genius  of  Ingres  is  unmistakably  evident — his  heads,  his  single 
figures,  his  exquisite  drawings  almost  in  outline.  His  "Oda- 
lisque" of  the  Louvre  is  not  as  forceful  as  David's  portrait  of 
Madame  R^camier,  but  it  is  a  finer  thing.  I  should  hke  the 
two  to  have  changed  subjects  in  this  instance.  His  "Source"  is 
beautifully  drawn  and  modelled.  In  everything  he  did  distinc- 
tion is  apparent.  Inferior  assuredly  to  David  when  he  at- 
tempted the  grand  style,  he  had  a  truer  feehng  for  the  subtler 
qualities  of  style  itself.  AU  his  works  are  linearly  beautiful 
demonstrations  of  his  sincerity — his  sanity  indeed — in  pro- 
claiming that  drawing  is  "the  probity  of  art." 

With  a  few  contemporary  painters  and  critics,  whose  spe- 
cific penetration  is  sometimes  in  curious  contrast  with  their 
imperfect  catholicity,  he  has  recently  come  into  vogue  again, 
after  having  been  greatly  neglected  since  the  romantic  out- 

[36] 


PRUDHON 
PSYCHE  CARRIED  OFF  BY  ZEPHYRUS 


aaDiiies" 

within 

yk 

Homer." 
however 

It  is  l> 

4mi 

'  - 

iIIh 

Ur 

not  a^ 

:-i  01  mctii  ^uDjects  is  to  be  far.  more  ciosei} 

\  contemporary  feeling  as  to  what  is  legitime 

iU  imaginative  painting,  than  to  pictojrialize  an  iict 

with- a  systematic  artificiality  and  conformity  to  absti 

that  would  surely  have  made  the  sculptor  of  the  Tra 

n  smile.  Yet  I  would  rather  have  "The  Rape  of 

than  "The  Apotheosis: 
linting.  The  paint 
iiiore  the  master  of 
ication  of  his  admiral 
more,  but  it  is  natura 
a  unity  out  of 
pictures  tl 
s  heads,  his  suj. 
■   e.  His  **Oda- 
portrait  of 
ig.  1  should  like  t* 
nee.  His  "Source 
t.  in  everything  he  did  distr 
u  IS  appal  e»i  ior  abi^uredly  to  David  when  he 

f  r  ipted  the  grand  stj^le,  he  had  a  truer  feeling  for  the  sub 
qualities  of  style  itself.  All  his  works  are  linearly  beaut 
demonstrations  of  his  sincerity ^ — his  sanity  indeed — ^in  p 
i  ihat  drawing  is  "tibe  probity  of  art." 

v  contemporary  painters  and  critics,  whose  si 
c  pehctraticm  is  sometimes  in  curious  contrast  with  t] 
\Hit  tAtholicity,  he  has  recently  come  into  vogue  ag 
..  .<*  iiaving  beeagrea^  ^ected  since  the  romantic  o 


?/JiIYH43\  Yfr    IK)  (rrwiu/ 


4\ 

'^m      #         _ 

If 
...  j^ 

•>    •    •     >       * 


CLASSIC  PAINTING 
burst.  But  he  belongs  completely  to  the  classic  epoch.  Neither 
he  nor  his  refined  and  sympathetic  pupil,  Flandrin,  did  aught 
to  pave  the  way  for  the  modern  movement.  Intimations  of  the 
shifting  point  of  view  are  discoverable  rather  in  a  painter  of 
far  deeper  poetic  interest  than  either,  spite  of  Ingres's  refine- 
ment and  Flandrin's  elevation — in  Prudhon.  Prudhon  is  the 
link  between  the  last  days  of  the  classic  supremacy  and  the 
rise  of  romanticism.  Like  Claude,  like  Chardin,  he  stands 
somewhat  apart;  but  he  has  distinctly  the  romantic  inspira- 
tion, constrained  and  regularized  by  classic  principles  of  taste. 
He  is  the  French  Correggio  in  far  more  precise  parallelism 
than  Lesueur  is  the  French  Raphael.  With  a  grace  and  lam- 
bent color  all  his  own — a  beautiful  mother-of-pearl  and  opa- 
lescent tone  underlying  his  exquisite  violets  and  graver  hues; 
a  color-scheme,  on  the  one  hand,  and  a  sense  of  design  in  line 
and  mass  more  suave  and  graceful  than  anything  since  the 
great  Italians,  on  the  other — he  recalls  the  lovely  chiaro- 
oscuro  of  the  exquisite  Parmesan  as  it  is  recalled  in  no  other 
modem  painter.  Occupying,  as  incontestably  he  does,  his  own 
niche  in  the  pantheon  of  painters,  he  nevertheless  illustrates 
most  distinctly  and  unmistakably  the  slipping  away  of  French 
painting  from  classic  formulas  as  well  as  from  classic  ex- 
travagance, and  the  tendency  to  new  ideals  of  wider  reach 
and  greater  tolerance — of  more  freedom,  spontaneity,  interest 
in  "life  and  the  world" — of  a  definitive  break  with  the  con- 
tracting and  constricting  forces  of  classicism.  During  its  next 
period,  and  indeed  down  to  the  present  day,  French  painting 
will  preserve  the   essence  of  its   classic  traditions,  variously 

[37] 


FRENCH  ART 

modified  from  decade  to  decade,  but  never  losing  the  quality 
in  virtue  of  which  what  is  French  is  always  measurably  the 
most  classic  thing  going;  but  of  this  next  period  certainly 
Prudhon  is  the  precursor,  who,  with  all  his  classic  serenity, 
presages  its  passion  for  **  storms,  clouds,  effusion,  and  reUef." 


[38] 


II 

ROMANTIC  PAINTING 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 


WHEN  we  come  to  Scott  after  Fielding,  says  Mr.  Ste- 
venson, "we  become  suddenly  conscious  of  the  back- 
ground." The  remark  contains  an  admirable  characterization 
of  romanticism;  as  distinguished  from  classicism,  romanticism 
is  consciousness  of  the  background.  With  Gros,  G^ricault, 
Paul  Huet,  Michel,  Delacroix,  French  painting  ceased  to  be 
abstract  and  impersonal.  Instead  of  continuing  the  classic 
detachment,  it  became  interested,  curious,  and  catholic.  It 
broadened  its  range  immensely,  and  created  its  effect  by 
observing  the  relations  of  its  objects  to  their  environment,  of 
its  figures  to  the  landscape,  of  its  subjects  to  their  sugges- 
tions even  in  other  spheres  of  thought;  Delacroix,  Marilhat, 
Decamps,  Fromentin,  in  painting  the  aspect  of  OrientaMsm, 
suggested,  one  may  almost  say,  its  sociology.  For  the  abstrac- 
tions of  classicism,  its  formula,  its  fastidious  system  of  arriving 
at  perfection  by  exclusions  and  sacrifices,  it  substituted  an  en- 
thusiasm for  the  concrete  and  the  actual;  it  revelled  in  natural 
phenomena.  Gautier  was  never  more  definitely  the  exponent 
of  romanticism  than  in  saying  "I  am  a  man  for  whom  the 
visible  world  exists."  To  lines  and  curves  and  masses  and  their 
relations  in  composition,  succeeds  as  material  for  inspiration 
and  reproduction  the  varied  spectacle  of  the  external  world. 
With  the  early  romanticists  it  may  be  said  that  for  the  first 
time  the  external  world  "swims  into"  the  painter's  "ken."  But, 

[41  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

above  all,  in  them  the  element  of  personality  first  appears  in 
French  painting  with  anything  hke  general  acceptance  and 
as  the  characteristic  of  a  group,  a  school,  rather  than  as  an 
isolated  exception  here  and  there,  such  as  Claude  or  Chardin. 
The  "point  of  view"  takes  the  place  of  conformity  to  a  stand- 
ard. The  painter  expresses  himself  instead  of  endeavoring  to 
realize  an  extraneous  and  impersonal  ideal.  What  he  himself 
personally  thinks,  how  he  himself  personally  feels,  is  what  we 
read  in  his  works. 

It  is  true  that,  rightly  understood,  the  romantic  epoch  is  a 
period  of  evolution,  and  orderly  evolution  at  that,  if  we  look 
below  the  surface,  rather  than  of  systematic  defiance  and  re- 
volt. It  is  true  that  it  recast  rather  than  repudiated  its  inheri- 
tance of  tradition.  Nevertheless  there  has  never  been  a  time 
when  the  individual  felt  himself  so  free,  when  every  man  of 
any  original  genius  felt  so  keenly  the  exhilaration  of  indepen- 
dence, when  the  "schools"  of  painting  exercised  less  tyranny 
and,  indeed,  counted  for  so  little.  If  it  be  exact  to  speak  of 
the  "romantic  school"  at  all,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that 
its  adherents  were  men  of  the  most  marked  and  diverse  indi- 
vidualities ever  grouped  under  one  standard.  The  impression- 
ists, perhaps,  apart,  individuality  is  often  spoken  of  as  the 
essential  characteristic  of  the  painters  of  the  present  day.  But 
beside  the  outburst  of  individuahty  at  the  beginning  of  the 
romantic  epoch,  much  of  the  painting  of  the  present  day  seems 
both  monotonous  and  eccentric — the  variation  of  its  essential 
monotony,  that  is  to  say,  being  somewhat  labored  and  express 
in  comparison  with  the  spontaneous  multifariousness  of  the 

[42] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

epoch  of  Delacroix  and  Decamps.  In  the  decade  between  1820 
and  1830,  at  all  events,  notwithstanding  the  strength  of  the 
academic  tradition,  painting  was  free  from  the  thraldom  of 
system,  and  the  imagination  of  its  practitioners  was  not  chal- 
lenged and  circumscribed  by  the  criticism  that  is  based  upon 
science.  Not  only  in  the  painter's  freedom  in  his  choice  of 
subject,  but  in  his  way  of  treating  it,  in  the  way  in  which  he 
"takes  it,"  is  the  revolution — or,  as  I  should  be  inclined  to 
say,  rather,  the  evolution — shown.  And  as  what  we  mean  by 
personality  is,  in  general,  made  up  far  more  of  emotion  than 
of  mind — there  being  room  for  infinitely  more  variety  in  feel- 
ing than  in  mental  processes  among  intelligent  agents — it  is 
natural  to  find  the  French  romantic  painters  giving,  by  con- 
trast with  their  predecessors,  such  free  swing  to  personal  feeling 
that  we  may  almost  sum  up  the  origin  of  the  romantic  move- 
ment in  French  painting  in  saying  that  it  was  an  ebuUition  of 
J  emancipated  emotion.  And,  to  go  a  step  farther,  we  may  say 
that,  as  nothing  is  so  essential  to  poetry  as  feehng,  we  meet 
now  for  the  first  time  with  the  poetic  element  as  an  inspiring 
motive  and  controlling  force. 

The  romantic  painters  were,  however,  by  no  means  merely 
emotional.  They  were  mainly  imaginative.  And  in  painting,  as 
in  hterature,  the  great  change  wrought  by  romanticism  con- 
sisted in  stimulating  the  imagination  instead  of  merely  satis- 
fying the  sense  and  the  intellect.  The  main  idea  ceased  to  be 
as  obviously  accentuated,  and  its  natural  surroundings  were 
given  their  natural  place;  there  was  less  direct  statement  and 
more  suggestion;  the  artist's  effort  was  expended  rather  upon 

[43] 


FRENCH  ART 

perfecting  the  ensemble,  noting  relations,  taking  in  a  larger 
circle;  a  suggested  complexity  of  moral  elements  took  the 
place  of  the  old  simplicity,  whose  multifariousness  was  almost 
wholly  pictorial.  Instead  of  a  landscape  as  a  tapestry  back- 
ground to  a  Holy  Family,  and  having  no  pertinence  but  an 
artistic  one,  we  have  Corot's  "Orpheus." 


II 


Gericault  and  Delacroix  are  the  great  names  inscribed  at 
the  head  of  the  romantic  roll.  They  will  remain  there.  And 
the  distinction  is  theirs  not  as  awarded  by  the  historical  es- 
timate; it  is  personal.  In  the  case  of  Gericault  perhaps  one 
thinks  a  httle  of  "the  man  and  the  moment"  theory.  He 
was,  it  is  true,  the  first  romantic  painter — at  any  rate  the 
first  notable  romantic  painter.  His  struggles,  his  steadfast- 
ness, his  success — pathetically  posthumous — have  given  him 
an  honorable  eminence.  His  example  of  force  and  freedom 
exerted  an  influence  that  has  been  traced  not  only  in  the 
work  of  Delacroix,  his  immediate  inheritor,  but  in  that  of  the 
sculptor  Rude,  and  even  as  far  as  that  of  Millet — to  all  out- 
ward appearance  so  different  in  inspiration  from  that  of  his 
own  tumultuous  and  dramatic  genius.  And  as  of  late  years  we 
look  on  the  stages  of  any  evolution  as  less  dependent  on  indi- 
viduals than  we  used  to,  doubtless  just  as  Luther  was  con- 
firmed and  supported  on  his  way  to  the  Council  at  Worms  by 
the  people  calling  on  him  from  the  house-tops  not  to  deny  the 
truth,  Gericault  was  sustained  and  stimulated  in  the  face  of 

[  44  ] 


s 


< 

Q 

H 
O 

< 

H 


.4/1.  J.  V  i  ^ 


^tl  ART 

scmble,  noting  relations,  taking  in  a  iaiger 
ic;  ix  jd  complexity  of  moral  elements  took  t- 

'    e  oiu  simplicity,  whose  multifaiiousness  was  aim< 
pictorial.  Instead  of  a  landscape  as  a  tapestry  bac ; 
and  to  a  Holy  Family,  and  having  no  pertinence  but  an 
irtistie  one,  we  have  Coiro''      'Vr>heus." 


iiies  mscribeu  at 

1  there.  Aiid 

he  historical  es-    J 

iult  perhaps  one    1 

nt"  theory.  He 

at  any  rate  t' 

steadfa 

iiavc  given  him 

^'ce  an(^    '      ^  m 

uat  ol  1  ■ 

sculptor  liiiiU 

iviiliet— to  aV 

^,var(l  appearanci 

a  lion  from  that  oi  ins 

own  tumultuous 

*>.  And  as  of  lat^ 

]on\<  on  the  st 

m  less  dependent  on  iiidi 

vh^           '.an  wc 

ist  as  Luther  was  con-    \ 

> 

cv 

e  Council  at  Worms  by 

^^ 

csMiagoii 

the  house-tops  not  to  deny  the    . 

-5       {► 

ricaUlt  was 

tiik^*.^mmd  and  srtimukted  in  the  face 

c  £ 

> 

c  C  C  C  c 

^  f  < 
f  c  c  c  t 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

official  obloquy  by  a  more  or  less  considerable  assthetic  move- 
ment of  which  he  was  really  but  the  leader  and  exponent.  But 
his  fame  is  not  dependent  upon  his  revolt  against  the  Institute, 
his  influence  upon  his  successors,  or  his  incarnation  of  an  aes- 
thetic movement.  It  rests  on  his  individual  accomplishment, 
his  personal  value,  the  abiding  interest  of  his  pictures.  "The 
Raft  of  the  Medusa"  wiU  remain  an  admirable  and  moving 
creation,  a  masterpiece  of  dramatic  vigor  and  vivid  characteri- 
zation, of  wide  and  deep  human  interest  and  truly  panoramic 
grandeur,  long  after  its  contemporary  interest  and  historic  im- 
portance have  ceased  to  be  thought  of  except  by  the  aesthetic 
antiquarian.  "The  Wounded  Cuirassier"  and  the  "Chasseur  of 
the  Guard"  are  not  documents  of  assthetic  history,  but  noble 
expressions  of  artistic  sapience  and  personal  feeling. 

What,  I  think,  is  the  notable  thing  about  both  Gericault 
and  Delacroix,  however,  as  exponents,  as  the  initiators,  of 
romanticism,  is  the  way  in  which  they  restrained  the  im- 
petuous temperament  they  share  within  the  confines  of  a  truly 
classic  reserve.  Closely  considered,  they  are  not  the  revolu- 
tionists they  seemed  to  the  official  classicism  of  their  day.  Not 
only  do  they  not  base  their  true  claims  to  enduring  fame  upon 
a  spirit  of  revolt  against  official  and  academic  art — a  spirit 
essentially  negative  and  nugatory,  and  never  the  inspiration  of 
anything  permanently  puissant  and  attractive — but,  compared 
with  their  successors  of  the  present  day,  in  whose  works  indi- 
vidual preference  and  predilection  seem  to  have  a  swing  whose 
very  freedom  and  irresponsible  audacity  extort  admiration — 
compared  with  the  confident  temerariousness  of  what  is  known 

[45] 


FRENCH  ART 

as  modernite,  their  self-possession  and  sobriety  seem  their  most 
noteworthy  characteristics.  Compared  with  the  "Bar  at  the 
Fohes-Berg^re,"  either  the  "Raft  of  the  Medusa"  or  the  "Con- 
vulsionists  of  Tangiers"  is  a  classic  production.  And  the  differ- 
ence is  not  at  all  due  to  the  forty  years'  accretion  of  protes- 
tantism which  Manet  represents  as  compared  with  the  early 
romanticists.  It  is  due  to  a  complete  difference  in  attitude. 
G^ricault  imbued  himself  with  the  inspiration  of  the  Louvre. 
Delacroix  is  said  always  to  have  made  a  sketch  from  the  old 
masters  or  the  antique  a  preliminary  to  his  own  daily  work.  So 
far  from  flaunting  tradition,  they  may  be  said  to  have,  in  their 
own  view,  restored  it;  so  far  from  posing  as  apostles  of  in- 
novation, they  may  almost  be  accused  of  "harking  back" — of 
steeping  themselves  in  what  to  them  seemed  best  and  finest 
and  most  authoritative  in  art,  instead  of  giving  a  free  rein  to 
their  own  unregulated  emotions  and  conceptions. 

G^ricault  died  early  and  left  but  a  meagre  product.  Dela- 
croix is  par  excellence  the  representative  of  the  romantic  epoch. 
And  both  by  the  mass  and  the  quality  of  his  work  he  forms 
a  true  connecting  hnk  between  the  classic  epoch  and  the  mod- 
em— in  somewhat  the  same  way  as  Prudhon  does,  though 
more  explicitly  and  on  the  other  side  of  the  line  of  division. 
He  represents  culture — he  knows  art  as  well  as  he  loves 
nature.  He  has  a  feeling  for  what  is  beautiful  as  well  as  a 
knowledge  of  what  is  true.  He  is  pre-eminently  and  primarily 
a  colorist — he  is,  in  fact,  the  introducer  of  color  as  a  distinct 
element  in  French  painting  after  the  pale  and  bleak  reaction 
from  the  Louis  Quinze  decorativeness.  His  color,  too,  is  not 

[46] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

merely  the  prismatic  coloration  of  what  had  theretofore  been 
mere  chiaro-oscuro ;  it  is  original  and  personal  to  such  a  degree 
that  it  has  never  been  successfully  imitated  since  his  day. 
Withal,  it  is  apparently  simplicity  itself.  Its  hues  are  appar- 
ently the  primary  ones,  in  the  main.  It  depends  upon  no  sub- 
tleties and  refinements  of  tints  for  its  effectiveness.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  the  absorbed  and  affected  Rossetti  did  not  like  it; 
it  is  too  frank  and  clear  and  open,  and  shows  too  little  evi- 
dence of  the  morbid  brooding  and  hysterical  forcing  of  an  ar- 
bitrary and  esoteric  note  dear  to  the  English  pre-Raphaehtes. 
It  attests  a  delight  in  color,  not  a  fondness  for  certain  colors, 
hues,  tints — a  difference  perfectly  appreciable  to  either  an 
unsophisticated  or  an  educated  sense.  It  has  a  sohdity  and 
strength  of  range  and  vibration  combined  with  a  subtle  sensi- 
tiveness, and,  as  a  result  of  the  fusion  of  the  two,  a  certain 
splendor  that  recalls  Saracenic  decoration.  And  with  this  mas- 
tery of  color  is  united  a  combined  firmness  and  expressiveness 
of  design  that  makes  Delacroix  unique  by  emphasizing  his 
truly  classic  subordination  of  informing  enthusiasm  to  a  severe 
and  clearly  perceived  ideal — an  ideal  in  a  sense  exterior  to  his 
purely  personal  expression.  In  a  word,  his  chief  characteristic 
— and  it  is  a  supremely  significant  trait  in  the  representative 
painter  of  romanticism — is  a  poetic  imagination  tempered  and 
trained  by  culture  and  refinement.  When  his  audacities  and 
enthusiasms  are  thought  of,  the  directions  in  his  will  for  his 
tomb  should  be  remembered  too:  "II  n'y  sera  place  ni  em- 
bl^me,  ni  buste,  ni  statue;  mon  tombeau  sera  copie  tres  exacte- 
ment  sur  I'antique,  ou  Vignoles  ou  Palladio,  avec  des  saiUies 

[47] 


FRENCH  ART 

tr^s  prononc^es,  contrairement  a  tout  ce  qui  se  fait  aujourd'hui 
en  architecture."  "Let  there  be  neither  emblem,  bust,  nor 
statue  on  my  tomb,  which  shall  be  copied  very  scrupulously 
after  the  antique,  either  Vignola  or  Palladio,  with  prominent 
projections,  contrary  to  everything  done  to-day  in  architec- 
ture." In  a  sense  all  Delacroix  is  in  these  words. 


Ill 


Delacroix's  color  deepens  into  an  almost  musical  intensity 
occasionally  in  Decamps,  whose  oriental  landscapes  and  figures, 
far  less  important  intellectually,  far  less  magistrales  in  concep- 
tion, have  at  times,  one  may  say  perhaps  without  being  too 
fanciful,  a  truly  symphonic  quality  that  renders  them  unique. 
"The  Suicide"  is  like  a  chord  on  a  violin.  But  it  is  when  we 
come  to  speak  of  the  "Fontainebleau  Group,"  in  especial,  I 
think,  that  the  aesthetic  susceptibihty  characteristic  of  the  lat- 
ter half  of  the  nineteenth  century  feels,  to  borrow  M.  Taine's 
introduction  to  his  lectures  on  "The  Ideal  in  Art,"  that  the 
subject  is  one  only  to  be  treated  in  poetry. 

Of  the  noblest  of  all  so-called  "schools,"  Millet  is  perhaps 
the  most  popular  member.  His  popularity  is  in  great  part,  cer- 
tainly, due  to  his  Hterary  side,  to  the  sentiment  which  per- 
vades, which  drenches,  one  may  say,  all  his  later  work — his 
work  after  he  had,  on  overhearing  himself  characterized  as  a 
painter  of  naked  women,  betaken  himself  to  his  true  subject, 
the  French  peasant.  A  literary,  and  a  very  powerful  literary 
side,  MiUet  undoubtedly  has ;  and  instead  of  being  a  weakness 

[48] 


X 


\  ti 


ti'vS  I;  CiS,  contrairement  a  tout  ce  qui  se  lait  aujoara 

en  arciutecture."  **Let  there  be  neither  emblem,  .bu* 
nU^^ie  on  my  tomb,  which  shall  be  copied  very  scrupuioi 
a  ler  the  antique,  either  Vignola  or  Palladio,  with  promi 
r  ojections,  contrary  to  everything  done  to-day  in  arcl 
re,"  In.  a  sense  all  Delacroix  is  in  these  words. 


s 


1)  musical  mtensi 

d  landscapes  and  figure 
V,  tar  it  '     in  concei 

le  may  say  periuis  out  being 

phonic  quality  that  reiiacrii  them  unique 
^*  I  li€  is  like  a  chord  on  a  violin.  But  it  is  when 

ne  to  sjpeak  erf  ^e  *^Fonta*     ' '        ''      p,"  in  especiii 


ter  hp 


Of  the  no 
tiie  most  popular 
tainly,  due  to  hih  *i%m* 

ies,  which  dr<^^ 

k  after  he  h 

pir  ^"  naked 


-tie  of  the 
•  o  Donow  M.  Tail 
Ideal  in  Art,"  that 
ill  poetry. 

'*schools,**  Millet  is  per 
mlarity  is  in  great  part, 
>  the  sentiment  which  }- 
^y,  all  his  later  work —   is 
^  himself  characterized  as  a 
himself  to  his  true  subi 


the  French  peasant  A  literary*  and  a  very  powerful  li 
ndoubtedly  has ;  and  instead  of  being  a  wt 


m 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

in  him  it  is  a  power.  His  sentimental  appeal  is  far  from  being 
surplusage,  but,  as  is  not  I  think  popularly  appreciated,  it  is 
subordinate,  and  the  fact  of  its  subordination  gives  it  what 
potency  it  has.  It  is  idle  to  deny  this  potency,  for  his  portrayal 
of  the  French  peasant  in  his  varied  aspects  has  probably  been 
as  efficient  a  characterization  as  that  of  George  Sand  herself. 
But,  if  a  moral  instead  of  an  aesthetic  effisct  had  been  Millet  s 
chief  intention,  we  may  be  sure  that  it  would  have  been  made 
far  less  incisively  than  it  has  been.  Compare,  for  example,  his 
peasant  pictures  with  those  of  the  almost  purely  Uterary  painter 
Jules  Breton,  who  has  evidently  chosen  his  field  for  its  senti- 
mental rather  than  its  pictorial  value,  and  whose  work  is,  per- 
haps accordingly,  by  contrast  with  Millet's,  noticeably  external 
and  superficial  even  on  the  Hterary  side.  When  MiUet  ceased 
to  deal  in  the  Correggio  manner  with  Correggiesque  subjects, 
and  devoted  himself  to  the  material  that  was  really  native 
to  him,  to  his  own  peasant  genius — whatever  he  may  have 
thought  about  it  himself,  he  did  so  because  he  could  treat  this 
material  pictorially  with  more  freedom  and  less  artificiaUty, 
with  more  zest  and  enthusiasm,  with  a  deeper  sympathy  and 
a  more  intimate  knowledge  of  its  artistic  characteristics,  its 
pictorial  potentiahties.  He  is,  I  think,  as  a  painter,  a  shade 
too  much  preoccupied  with  this  material,  he  is  a  little  too 
philosophical  in  regard  to  it,  his  pathetic  struggle  for  existence 
exaggerated  his  sentimental  affihations  with  it  somewhat,  he 
made  it  too  exclusively  his  subject,  perhaps.  We  gain,  it  may 
be,  at  his  expense.  With  his  artistic  gifts  he  might  have  been 
more  fortunate,  had  his  range  been  broader.  But  in  the  main 

[49] 


FRENCH  ART 

it  is  his  pictorial  handling  of  this  material,  with  which  he  was 
in  such  acute  sympathy,  that  distinguishes  his  work,  and  that 
will  preserve  its  fame  long  after  its  humanitarian  and  senti- 
mental appeal  has  ceased  to  be  as  potent  as  it  now  is — at  the 
same  time  that  it  has  itself  enforced  this  appeal  in  the  subor- 
dinating manner  I  have  suggested.  When  he  was  asked  his 
intention,  in  his  picture  of  a  maimed  calf  borne  away  on  a  lit- 
ter by  two  men,  he  said  it  was  simply  to  indicate  the  sense  of 
weight  in  the  muscular  movement  and  attitude  of  the  bearers' 
arms. 

His  great  distinction,  in  fine,  is  artistic.  His  early  painting 
of  conventional  subjects  is  not  without  significance  in  its  wit- 
ness to  the  quality  of  his  talent.  Another  may  paint  French 
peasants  all  his  hfe  and  never  make  them  permanently  in- 
teresting, because  he  has  not  Millet's  admirable  instinct  and 
equipment  as  a  painter.  He  is  a  superb  colorist,  at  times — al- 
ways an  enthusiastic  one;  there  is  something  almost  unregu- 
lated in  his  delight  in  color,  in  his  fondness  for  glowing  and 
resplendent  tone.  No  one  gets  farther  away  from  the  academic 
grayness,  the  colorless  chiaro-oscuro  of  the  conventional  paint- 
ers. He  runs  his  key  up  and  loads  his  canvas,  occasionally,  in 
what  one  may  call  not  so  much  barbaric  as  uncultivated  and 
elementary  fashion.  He  cares  so  much  for  color  that  some- 
times, when  his  effect  is  intended  to  be  purely  atmospheric,  as 
in  the  "Ang^lus,"  he  misses  its  justness  and  fitness,  and  so,  in 
insisting  on  color,  obtains  from  the  color  point  of  view  itself 
an  infelicitous — a  colored — result.  Occasionally  he  bathes  a 
scene  in  yellow  mist  that  obscures  all  accentuations  and  play  of 

[50] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

values.  But  always  his  feeling  for  color  betrays  him  a  painter 
rather  than  a  moralist.  And  in  composition  he  is,  I  should  say, 
even  more  distinguished.  His  composition  is  almost  always  dis- 
tinctly elegant.  Even  in  so  simple  a  scheme  as  that  of  "The 
Sower,"  the  hnes  are  as  fine  as  those  of  a  Raphael.  And  the 
way  in  which  balance  is  preserved,  masses  are  distributed,  and 
an  organic  play  of  parts  related  to  each  other  and  each  to  the 
sum  of  them  is  secured,  is  in  all  of  his  large  works  so  salient 
an  element  of  their  admirable  excellence,  that,  to  those  who 
appreciate  it,  the  dependence  of  his  popularity  upon  the  sen- 
timental suggestion  of  the  raw  material  with  which  he  dealt 
seems  almost  grotesque.  In  his  line  and  mass  and  the  relations 
of  these  in  composition,  there  is  a  severity,  a  restraint,  a  con- 
formity to  tradition,  however  personally  felt  and  individually 
modified,  that  evince  a  strong  classic  strain  in  this  most  un- 
academic  of  painters.  Millet  was  certainly  an  original  genius, 
if  there  ever  was  one.  In  spite  of,  and  in  open  hostiUty  to,  the 
popular  and  conventional  painting  of  his  day,  he  followed  his 
own  bent  and  went  his  own  way.  Better,  perhaps,  than  any 
other  painter,  he  represents  absolute  emancipation  from  the 
prescribed,  from  routine  and  formulary.  But  it  would  be  a  sig- 
nal mistake  to  fail  to  see,  in  the  most  characteristic  works  of 
this  most  personal  representative  of  romanticism,  that  subor- 
dination of  the  individual  whim  and  isolated  point  of  view  to 
what  is  accepted,  proven,  and  universal,  which  is  essentially 
what  we  mean  by  the  classic  attitude.  One  may  almost  go  so 
far  as  to  say,  considering  its  reserve,  its  restraint  and  poise,  its 
sobriety  and  measure,  its  quiet  and  composure,  its  subordina- 

[51  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

tion  of  individual  feeling  to  a  high  sense  of  artistic  decorum, 
that,  romantic  as  it  is,  unacademic  as  it  is,  its  most  incon- 
testable claim  to  permanence  is  the  truly  classic  spirit  which, 
however  modified,  inspires  and  infiltrates  it.  Beside  some  of 
the  later  manifestations  of  individual  genius  in  French  paint- 
ing, it  is  almost  academic. 

In  Corot,  any  one,  I  suppose,  can  see  this  note,  and  it  would 
be  surplusage  to  insist  upon  it.  He  is  the  ideal  classic-romantic 
painter,  both  in  temperament  and  in  practice.  Millet's  subject, 
not,  I  think,  his  treatment — possibly  his  wider  range — makes 
him  seem  more  deeply  serious  than  Corot,  but  he  is  not  essen- 
tially as  nearly  unique.  He  is  unrivalled  in  his  way,  but  Corot 
is  unparalleled.  Corot  inherits  the  tradition  of  Claude ;  his  mo- 
tive, like  Claude's,  is  always  an  effect,  and,  like  Claude's,  his 
means  are  light  and  air.  But  his  effect  is  a  shade  more  impal- 
pable, and  his  means  are  at  once  simpler  and  more  subtle.  He 
gets  farther  away  from  the  phenomena  which  are  the  elements 
of  his  ensemble,  farther  than  Claude,  farther  than  any  one.  His 
touch  is  as  light  as  the  zephyr  that  stirs  the  diaphanous  dra- 
pery of  his  trees.  Beside  it  Claude's  has  a  suspicion,  at  least,  of 
unctuousness.  It  has  a  pure,  crisp,  vibrant  accent,  quite  without 
analogue  in  the  technic  of  landscape  painting.  Taking  technic 
in  its  widest  sense,  one  may  speak  of  Corot's  shortcomings — 
not,  I  think,  of  his  failures.  It  would  be  difficult  to  mention  a 
modem  painter  more  uniformly  successful  in  attaining  his  aim, 
in  expressing  what  he  wishes  to  express,  in  conveying  his  im- 
pression, communicating  his  sensations. 

That  a  painter  of  his  power,  a  man  of  the  very  first  rank, 

[52] 


UCrUL" 


1    ,  .  _H  ART 

iion  of  individual  feeling  to  a  high  sense  of 
that.  TOiilantic  as  it  is,  unacadeniic  as  it  k.  '  - 

1    ut'jie  claim  to  permanence  is  the  truly  cla  -u    .|jiiu 
!  <'Wever  modified,  inspires  and  infiltrates  it.  Beside  souii 
'   ..  L.fgj.  manifestations  of  individual  genius  in  French  paii 
is  almost  academic 


«  i  if  ,    n. 


In  Corot,  any  one,  I, 
be  surplusage  to  j"  '-*  ^ 
.painter,  he^^   ^^ 


T  -a. 


UnctUOUSllCv^.    rt 

imalogue  in  th 
in  its  widest  seu 
npty  I  think,  of  h 
^      *--n  paintern* 

ing  what  i 
i  M   -  A^rimaunicai 

That  a  painter  of 


J-,,  — ] 


>      J  !  J  11  I  V  . ti 


ih  nvi  CSS 
ay,  but  Corox 
IS  the  tra<iuR»u  ui  vlaude;  his  mo» 
-n  effect,  and,  like  Claude      ' 
^*^  ""^  '        hade  more  ini| 

more  subtle,  iie 
the  elements 
r  tiuta  any. one.  His 
the  diaphanous  dr 
suspicion,  at  least,  oi 
at  accent,  quite  with o   * 
;)ainting.  Ta^in     '     ' 
iu  Corot's  shortcGJi 
?  be  difficult  to  meiuic : 
sful  in  attaining  his  ai; 
ss,  in  conveying  liis  iui- 


p?wcr,  a  uinn 


of  th^ 


ijnst  ni 


r    no    1 


c  c  c  c 
c  c  c  c 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

should  have  been  content — even  placidly  content — to  exercise 
it  within  a  range  by  no  means  narrow,  but  plainly  circum- 
scribed, is  certainly  witness  of  limitation.  "Delacroix  is  an 
eagle,  I  am  only  a  skylark,"  he  remarked  once,  with  his  char- 
acteristic cheeriness.  His  range  is  not,  it  is  true,  as  circum- 
scribed as  is  generally  supposed  outside  of  France.  Outside  of 
France  his  figure-painting,  for  example,  is  almost  unknown. 
We  see  chiefly  variations  of  his  green  and  gray  arbored  pas- 
toral— now  idyllic,  now  heroic,  now  full  of  freshness,  the  sky- 
lark quality,  now  of  grave  and  deep  harmonies  and  wild,  sweet 
notes  of  transitory  suggestion.  Of  his  figures  we  only  know 
those  shifting  shapes  that  blend  in  such  classic  and  charming 
manner  with  the  glades  and  groves  of  his  landscapes.  Of  his 
"Hagar  in  the  Wilderness,"  his  "St.  Jerome,"  his  "Flight  into 
Egypt,"  his  "Democritus,"  his  "Baptism  of  Christ,"  with  its 
nine  life-size  figures,  who,  outside  of  France,  has  even  heard? 
How  many  foreigners  know  that  he  painted  what  are  called 
architectural  subjects  delightfully,  and  even  genre  with  zest? 

But  compared  with  his  landscape,  in  which  he  is  unique,  it 
is  plain  that  he  excels  nowhere  else.  The  splendid  display  of 
his  works  in  the  Centenaire  Exposition  of  the  great  World's 
Fair  of  1889,  was  a  revelation  of  his  range  of  interest  rather 
than  of  his  range  of  power.  It  was  impossible  not  to  perceive 
that,  surprising  as  were  his  essays  in  other  fields  to  those  who 
only  knew  him  as  a  landscape  painter,  he  was  essentially  and 
integrally  a  painter  of  landscape,  though  a  painter  of  landscape 
who  had  taken  his  subject  in  a  way  and  treated  it  in  a  manner 
so  personal  as  to  be  really  unparalleled.  Outside  of  landscape 

[63] 


FRENCH  ART 

his  interest  was  clearly  not  real.  In  his  other  works  one  notes  a 
certain  debonnaire  irresponsibility.  He  pursued  nothing  seri- 
ously but  out-of-doors,  its  vaporous  atmosphere,  its  crisp  twigs 
and  graceful  branches,  its  misty  distances  and  piquant  accents, 
what  Thoreau  calls  its  inaudible  panting.  His  true  theme, 
lightly  as  he  took  it,  absorbed  him;  and  no  one  of  any  sensi- 
tiveness can  ever  regret  it.  His  powers,  following  the  indication 
of  his  true  temperament,  his  most  genuine  inspiration,  are  con- 
centrated upon  the  very  finest  thing  imaginable  in  landscape 
painting ;  as,  indeed,  to  produce  as  they  have  done  the  finest 
landscape  in  the  history  of  art,  they  must  have  been. 

There  are,  however,  two  things  worth  noting  in  Corot's 
landscape,  beyond  the  mere  fact  that,  better  even  than  Rous- 
seau, he  expresses  the  essence  of  landscape,  dwells  habitually 
among  its  inspirations,  and  is  its  master  rather  than  its  ser- 
vant. One  is  the  way  in  which  he  poetizes,  so  to  speak,  the 
simplest  stretches  of  sward  and  clumps  of  trees,  and  long  clear 
vistas  across  still  ponds,  with  distances  whose  accents  are 
pricked  out  with  white  houses  and  yellow  cows  and  placid 
fishers  and  ferrymen  in  red  caps,  seen  in  glimpses  through  cur- 
tains of  sparse,  feathery  leafage — or  peoples  woodland  open- 
ings with  nymphs  and  fauns,  silhouetted  against  the  sunset 
glow,  or  dancing  in  the  cool  gray  of  dusk.  A  man  of  no  read- 
ing, having  only  the  elements  of  an  education  in  the  general 
sense  of  the  term,  his  instinctive  sense  for  what  is  refined  was 
so  delicate  that  we  may  say  of  his  landscapes  that,  had  the 
Greeks  left  any,  they  would  have  been  like  Corot's.  And  this 
classic  and  cultivated  effect  he  secured  not  at  all,  or  only  very 

[54] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 
incidentally,  through  the  force  of  association,  by  dotting  his 
hillsides  and  vaporous  distances  with  bits  of  classic  architec- 
ture, or  by  summing  up  his  feeling  for  the  Dawn  in  a  graceful 
figure  of  Orpheus  greeting  with  extended  gesture  the  growing 
daylight,  but  by  a  subtle  interpenetration  of  sensuousness  and 
severity  resulting  in  precisely  the  sentiment  fitly  characterized 
by  the  epithet  classic.  The  other  trait  peculiar  to  Corot  s  rep- 
resentation of  nature  and  expression  of  himself  is  his  color.  No 
painter  ever  exhibited,  I  think,  quite  such  a  sense  of  refine- 
ment in  so  narrow  a  gamut.  Green  and  gray,  of  course,  pre- 
dominate and  set  the  key,  but  he  has  an  interestingly  varied 
palette  on  the  hither  side  of  splendor  whose  subtleties  are  ca- 
pable of  giving  exquisite  pleasure.  Never  did  any  one  use  tints 
with  such  positive  force.  Tints  with  Corot  have  the  vigor  and 
vibration  of  positive  colors — his  lilacs,  violets,  straw-colored 
hues,  his  almost  Quakerish  coquetry  with  drabs  and  slates  and 
pure  clear  browns,  the  freshness  and  bloom  he  imparted  to  his 
tones,  the  sweet  and  shrinking  wild  flowers  with  which  as  a 
spray  he  sprinkled  his  humid  dells  and  brook  margins.  But 
Corot's  true  distinction — what  gives  him  his  unique  position 
at  the  very  head  of  landscape  art,  is  neither  his  color,  dehcate 
and  interesting  as  his  color  is,  nor  his  classic  serenity  harmo- 
nizing with,  instead  of  depending  upon,  the  chance  associations 
of  architecture  and  mythology  with  which  now  and  then  he 
decorates  his  landscapes;  it  is  the  bUthe,  the  airy,  the  truly 
spiritual  way  in  which  he  gets  farther  away  than  any  one  from, 
both  the  actual  pigment  that  is  his  instrument,  and  from  the 
phenomena  that  are  the  objects  of  his  expression — his  ethere- 

[55] 


FRENCH  ART 

ality,  in  a  word.  He  has  communicated  his  sentiment  almost 
without  material,  one  may  say,  so  ethereally  independent  of 
their  actual  analogues  is  the  interest  of  his  trees  and  sky  and 
stretch  of  sward.  This  sentiment,  thus  mysteriously  triumphant 
over  color  or  form,  or  other  sensuous  charm,  which  neverthe- 
less are  only  subtly  subordinated,  and  by  no  manner  of  means 
treated  lightly  or  inadequately,  is  as  exalted  as  any  that  has 
in  our  day  been  expressed  in  any  manner.  Indeed,  where,  out- 
side of  the  very  highest  poetry  of  the  century,  can  one  get 
the  same  sense  of  elation,  of  aspiring  delight,  of  joy  unmixed 
with  regret — since  "the  splendor  of  truth"  which  Plato  de- 
fined beauty  to  be,  is  more  animating  and  consoling  than  the 
"weary  weight  of  all  this  unintelUgible  world,"  is  depressing 
to  a  spirit  of  lofty  seriousness  and  sanity? 

Dupr^  and  Diaz  are  the  decorative  painters  of  the  Fon- 
tainebleau  group.  They  are,  of  modern  painters,  perhaps  the 
nearest  in  spirit  to  the  old  masters,  pictorially  speaking.  They 
are  rarely  in  the  grand  style,  though  sometimes  Dupre  is  re- 
strained enough  to  emulate  if  not  to  achieve  its  sobriety.  But 
they  have  the  bel  air,  and  belong  to  the  aristocracy  of  the 
painting  world.  Diaz,  especially,  has  almost  invariably  the  pa- 
trician touch.  It  lacks  the  exquisiteness  of  MonticeUi's,  in  which 
there  is  that  curiously  elevated  detachment  from  the  material 
and  the  real  that  the  Italians — and  the  Proven9al  painter's 
inspiration  and  method,  as  well  as  his  name  and  lineage,  sug- 
gest an  Itahan  rather  than  a  French  association — exhibit  far 
oftener  than  the  French.  But  Diaz  has  a  larger  sweep,  a  saner 

[56] 


FRENCH  ART 

'  vrci.  He  has  communicated  his  sentiment  almo*^ 
luicui  Giateriai,  one  may  say,  so  ethereally  independent  o 
heir  a€ti;«il  analogues  is  the  interest  of  his  trees  and  sky 
^retcii  of  sward.  This  sentiment,  thus  mysteriously  triumphiii 
V  er  color  or  form,  or  other  sensuous  charm,  which  neverthe 
ire  only  subtly  subordinated,  and  by  no  manner  of  means^. 
iieaied  lightly  or  inad         '  H%  is  m  exidted  as  any  that  ha?- 
in  our  day  been  expre^-^a  m  imcr.  Indeed,  where,  out 

side  of  f  *  '  ^Me  century,  can  one  ge 

the  sam*  i  delight,  of  joy  unmixed 

with  r€^ici  -f  truth"  which  Plato  de 

ine-'  moling  than  tl- 

wr.  iid,'  is  depressing. 


fr?dntiUg  wodU 

>uch.  It  ia^ 
xhtxc  is  that  curio 
the  real  that 
nation  andmc' 

"an  rather  ii%mk  » 


painters  of  the  Jb  on 
•s,  perhaps  th 
ydy  speaking.  The 
aietimes  Dupre  is  rt 
thieve  its  sobriety.  Bii' 
aristocracy  of  th 
*»Iuiost  invariably  the  p« 
s  of  MonticeUi^s,  in  whici 
lent  firom  the  materia 
he  Proven9al  painter 
»  name  and  lin^ige,  sug- 
h  association — exhibit  f:i 


the  French,  ito^  Uiiu  has  a  laiger  sweep,  a  saner 


<  f   c  c 
f  c  c  c 


<  c 

< , ,  t 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 
method.  He  is  never  eccentric,  and  he  has  a  dignity  that 
is  Iberian,  though  he  is  French  rather  than  Spanish  on  his 
aesthetic  side,  and  at  times  is  as  conservative  as  Rousseau 
— without,  however,  reaching  Rousseau's  lofty  simphcity  ex- 
cept in  an  occasional  happy  stroke.  Both  he  and  Duprd  are 
primarily  colorists.  Duprd  sees  nature  through  a  prism.  Diaz's 
groups  of  dames  and  gallants  have  a  jewel-like  aspect ;  they 
leave  the  same  impression  as  a  tangle  of  ribbons,  a  bunch  of 
exotic  flowers,  a  heap  of  gems  flung  together  with  the  felicity 
of  haphazard.  In  general,  and  when  they  are  in  most  com- 
pletely characteristic  mood,  it  is  not  the  sentiment  of  nature 
that  one  gets  from  the  work  of  either  painter.  It  is  not  even 
their  sentiment  of  nature — the  emotion  aroused  in  their  sus- 
ceptibilities by  natural  phenomena.  What  one  gets  is  their 
personal  feehng  for  color  and  design — their  decorative  quality, 
in  a  word. 

The  decorative  painter  is  he  to  whom  what  is  called  "sub- 
ject," even  in  its  least  restricted  sense  and  with  its  least 
substantial  suggestions,  is  comparatively  indifferent.  Nature 
suppHes  him  with  objects;  she  is  not  in  any  intimate  degree 
his  subject.  She  is  the  medium  through  which,  rather  than  the 
material  of  which,  he  creates  his  effects.  It  is  her  potentialities 
of  color  and  design  that  he  seeks,  or  at  any  rate,  of  all  her  in- 
finitely numerous  traits,  it  is  her  hues  and  arabesques  that 
strike  him  most  forcibly.  He  is  incurious  as  to  her  secrets 
and  calls  upon  her  aid  to  interpret  his  own,  but  he  is  so 
independent  of  her,  if  he  be  a  decorative  painter  of  the  first 
rank — a  Diaz  or  a  Dupre — that  his  rendering  of  her,  his  pic- 

[57] 


FRENCH  ART 

ture,  would  have  an  agreeable  effect,  owing  to  its  design  or 
color  or  both,  if  it  were  turned  upside  down.  Decorative  paint- 
ing in  this  sense  may  easily  be  carried  so  far  as  to  seem  incon- 
gruous and  inept,  in  spite  of  its  superficial  attractiveness.  The 
peril  that  threatens  it  is  whim  and  freak.  Some  of  Monticelli's, 
some  of  Matthew  Maris's  pictures,  illustrate  the  exaggeration 
of  the  decorative  impulse.  After  all,  a  painter  must  get  his 
effect,  whatever  it  be  and  however  it  may  shun  the  literal  and 
the  exact,  by  rendering  things  with  pigments.  And  some  of 
the  decorative  painters  only  escape  things  by  obtruding  pig- 
ments, just  as  the  trompe-Voeil  or  optical  illusion  painters  get 
away  from  pigments  by  obtruding  things.  It  is  the  distinction 
of  Diaz  and  Dupre  that  they  avoid  this  danger  in  most  trium- 
phant fashion.  On  the  contrary,  they  help  one  to  see  the  deco- 
rative element  in  nature,  in  "things,"  to  a  degree  hardly  at- 
tained elsewhere  since  the  days  of  the  great  Venetians.  Their 
predilection  for  the  decorative  element  is  held  in  leash  by  the 
classic  tradition,  with  its  reserve,  its  measure,  its  inculcation  of 
sobriety  and  its  sense  of  security.  Dupr^  paints  Seine  sunsets 
and  the  edge  of  the  forest  at  Fontainebleau,  its  "long  myste- 
rious reaches  fed  with  moonlight,"  in  a  way  that  conveys  the 
golden  glow,  the  silvery  gleam,  the  suave  outline  of  spreading 
leafage,  and  the  massive  density  of  mysterious  boscage  with 
the  force  of  an  almost  abstract  acuteness.  Does  nature  look 
like  this?  Who  knows?  But  in  this  semblance,  surely,  she  ap- 
peared to  Dupr^  s  imagination.  And  doubtless  Diaz  saw  the 
mother-of-pearl  tints  in  the  complexion  of  his  models,  and  is 
not  to  be  accused  of  artificiality,  but  to  be  credited  with  a  true 

[58] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

sincerity  of  selection  in  juxtaposing  his  soft  corals  and  carna- 
tions and  gleaming  topaz,  amethyst,  and  sapphire  hues.  The 
most  exacting  HteraUst  can  hardly  accuse  them  of  solecism  in 
their  rendering  of  nature,  true  as  it  is  that  their  decorative 
sense  is  so  strong  as  to  lead  them  to  impose  on  nature  their 
own  sentiment  instead  of  yielding  themselves  to  absorption 
in  hers,  and  thus,  in  harmonious  and  sympathetic  concert  with 
her,  like  Claude  and  Corot,  Rousseau  and  Daubigny,  interpret- 
ing her  subtle  and  supreme  significance. 

Rousseau  carried  the  fundamental  principle  of  the  school 
farther  than  the  others — with  him  interest,  deUght  in,  enthu- 
siasm for  nature  became  absorption  in  her.  Whereas  other 
men  have  loved  nature,  it  has  been  acutely  remarked,  Rous- 
seau was  in  love  with  her.  It  was  feUcitously  of  him,  rather 
than  of  Dupre  or  Corot,  that  the  naif  peasant  inquired,  "Why 
do  you  paint  the  tree;  the  tree  is  there,  is  it  not?"  And  never 
did  nature  more  royally  reward  allegiance  to  her  than  in  the 
sustenance  and  inspiration  she  furnished  for  Rousseau's  genius. 
You  feel  the  point  of  view  in  his  picture,  but  it  is  apparently 
that  of  nature  herself  as  well  as  his  own.  It  is  not  the  less  per- 
sonal for  this.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  extremely  personal,  and 
few  pictures  are  as  individual,  as  characteristic.  Occasionally 
Diaz  approaches  him,  as  I  have  said,  but  only  in  the  very  hap- 
piest and  exceptional  moments,  when  the  dignity  of  nature  as 
weU  as  her  charm  seems  specially  to  impress  and  impose  itself 
upon  the  less  serious  painter.  But  Rousseau's  selection  seems 
instinctive  and  not  sought  out.  He  knows  the  secret  of  nature's 

[59] 


FRENCH  ART 

pictorial  element.  He  is  at  one  with  her,  adopts  her  sugges- 
tions so  cordially  and  works  them  out  with  such  intimate  sym- 
pathy and  harmoniousness,  that  the  two  forces  seem  recipro- 
cally to  reinforce  each  other,  and  the  result  gains  many  fold  in 
power  from  their  subtle  co-operation.  His  landscapes  have  in 
this  way  a  Wordsworthian  directness,  simphcity,  and  severity. 
They  are  not  troubled  and  dramatic  hke  Turner's.  They  are 
not  decorative  hke  Duprd  s;  they  have  not  the  solemn  sen- 
^  timent  of  Daubigny's,  or  the  airy  aspiration  and  fairy-like 
blitheness  of  Corot's.  But  there  is  in  them  "all  breathing 
human  passion";  and  at  times,  as  in  "Le  Givre,"  they  rise  to 
majesty  and  real  grandeur  because  they  are  impregnated  with 
the  sentiment,  as  well  as  are  records  of  the  phenomena,  of 
nature,  and  one  may  say  of  Rousseau,  paraphrasing  Mr.  Ar- 
nold's remark  about  Wordsworth,  that  nature  seems  herself 
to  take  the  brush  out  of  his  hand  and  to  paint  for  him  "with 
her  own  bare,  sheer,  penetrating  power."  Rousseau,  however, 
is  French,  and  in  virtue  of  his  nativity  exhibits  always  what 
Wordsworth's  treatment  of  nature  exhibits  only  occasionally, 
namely,  the  GaUic  gift  of  style.  It  is  rarely  as  feUcitous  as  in 
Corot,  in  every  detail  of  whose  every  work,  one  may  almost 
say,  its  informing,  co-ordinating,  elevating  influence  is  dis- 
tinctly to  be  perceived ;  but  it  is  always  present  as  a  factor,  as 
a  force  dignifying  and  reUeving  from  all  touch,  all  taint  of  the 
commonness  that  is  so  often  inseparably  associated  with  art 
whose  absorption  in  nature  is  Ustlessly  unthinking  instead  of 
enthusiastic  and  alert.  In  Rousseau,  too,  in  a  word,  we  have 
the  classic  strain,  as  at  least  a  psychological  element,  and  note 

[60] 


■  K^r. 


FRENCH  ART 

'  nient.  He  is  at  one  with  her,  iidopts  ht 
s  so  cxmiially  and  works  tbem  out  with  such  iiitimat* 
ly  BXtd  harmoniousness,  that  the  two  forces  seem  re 
cciiiy  to  reinfor^  each  otljer,  and  the  result  gains  many  ioid  m 
power  from  their  subtle  co-operation.  His  landscapes  have  in 
'      wf'v  a  Wordsworthian  directness,  simplicity,  and  se^ 
They  are  not  troubled  and  dmrnitt  Turner  s.  They  . 


not  decorative  W 

c  not  the  solemn  si 

timcait 

piration  and  fairy-li 

Ui^ie  is  in  them  **all  bre^ 

hunian 

l^  Givre,"  they  i 

^ld..r^ 

e  impregnated  w 
ot  the  phenomena, 
,  paraphrasing  Ml 
tbat  nature  seems  1 

to  paint  for  him  **witii 
■r^  Rousseau,  howev< 
y  exhibits  always  what 
ibits  only  occasional; 
%  rarely  as  felicitous  as  in 

Corot,  in  eve^ 

work,  one  may  almost 

si'V,   its  infbri 

ating  influence  v 

tinctly  to  be  j 

s  present  as  a  factor,  as 

a  force  dignify 

11  touch,  all  taint  of  t 

CO!'    lofiness  that 

hly  associated  with  ait 

whose  absorption 

iStJessly  imthinking  instead  of 

iistic  and  alert  h 

>o,  in  a  word,  we  have 

ssic  strain,  as  -. 

yychological  element,  and  note 

v3     C- 

' 

* 

c      c 
c  c  c  c 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 
as  one  source  of  his  power  his  reserve  and  restraint,  his  perfect 
self-possession. 

In  Daubigny  a  similar  attitude  toward  nature  is  obvious, 
but  with  a  sensible  difference.  Affection  for,  rather  than  ab- 
sorption in  her,  is  his  inspiration.  Daubigny  stands  somewhat 
apart  from  the  Fontainebleau  group,  with  whom  nevertheless 
he  is  popularly  and  properly  associated,  for  though  he  painted 
Normandy  mainly,  he  was  spiritually  of  the  Barbizon  kindred. 
He  stands,  however,  somewhat  apart  from  French  painting 
in  general,  I  think.  There  is  less  style,  more  sentiment,  more 
poetry  in  his  landscapes  than  in  those  of  his  countrymen  who 
are  to  be  compared  with  him.  Beyond  what  is  admirable  in 
them  there  is  something  attaching  as  weU.  He  drew  and  en- 
graved a  good  deal,  as  well  as  painted.  He  did  not  concentrate 
his  powers  enough,  perhaps,  to  make  as  signal  and  definite  a 
mark  as  otherwise  he  might  have  done.  He  is  a  shade  desul- 
tory, and  too  spontaneous  to  be  systematic.  One  must  be  sys- 
tematic to  reach  the  highest  point,  even  in  the  least  material 
spheres.  But  never  have  the  grave  and  solemn  aspects  of  land- 
scape found  a  sweeter  and  serener  spirit  to  interpret  them. 
In  some  of  his  pictures  there  is  a  truly  religious  feeling.  His 
frankness  recalls  Constable's,  but  it  is  more  distinguished  in 
being  more  spiritual.  He  has  not  Diaz's  elegance,  nor  Corot's 
witchery,  nor  Rousseau's  power,  but  nature  is  more  mysteri- 
ously, more  mystically  significant  to  him,  and  sets  a  deeper 
chord  vibrating  within  him.  He  is  a  sensitive  instrument  on 
which  she  plays,  rather  than  a  magician  who  wins  her  secrets, 
or  an  observer  whose  generalizing  imagination  she  sets  in  mo- 

[61] 


FRENCH  ART 

tion.  The  design  of  some  of  his  important  works,  notably  that 
of  his  last  Salon  picture,  is  very  distinguished,  and  in  one  of 
his  large  canvases  representing  a  road  Uke  that  from  Barbizon 
through  the  level  plain  to  Chailly,  there  is  the  spirit  and  sen- 
timent of  all  the  summer  evenings  that  ever  were.  But  he 
has  distinctly  less  power  than  the  strict  Fontainebleau  group. 
He  has,  in  force,  less  affinity  with  them  than  Troyon  has, 
whose  force  is  often  magnificent,  and  whose  landscape  is  so 
sweet,  often,  and  often  so  strong  as  well,  that  one  wonders  a 
little  at  his  fondness  for  cattle — in  spite  of  the  way  in  which 
he  justifies  it  by  being  the  first  of  cattle  painters.  And  neither 
Daubigny  nor  Troyon,  nor,  indeed,  Rousseau  himself,  often 
reaches  in  dramatic  grandeur  the  lofty  landscape  of  Michel, 
who,  with  Paul  Huet  (the  latter  in  a  more  strictly  historical 
sense),  so  truly  foreshadowed  and  indeed  initiated  the  romantic 
landscape  movement,  both  in  sentiment  and  chronology,  in 
spite  of  their  Dutch  tradition,  as  to  make  the  common  ascrip- 
tion of  its  debt  to  Constable,  whose  aid  was  so  cordially  wel- 
comed in  the  famous  Salon  of  1824,  a  little  strained. 


IV 


But  quite  aside  from  the  group  of  poetic  painters  which 
stamped  its  impress  so  deeply  upon  the  romantic  movement 
at  the  outset,  that  to  this  day  it  is  Delacroix  and  Millet,  De- 
camps and  Corot  whom  we  think  of  when  we  think  of  the 
movement  itself,  the  classic  tradition  was  preserved  all  through 
the  period  of  greatest  stress  and  least  conformity  by  painters 

[62] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

of  great  distinction,  who,  working  under  the  romantic  in- 
spiration and  more  or  less  according  to  what  may  be  called 
romantic  methods,  nevertheless  possessed  the  classic  tempera- 
ment in  so  eminent  a  degree  that  to  us  their  work  seems 
hardly  less  academic  than  that  of  the  Revolution  and  the  Em- 
pire. Not  only  Ingres,  but  Delaroche  and  Ary  Scheifer,  painted 
beside  Gericault  and  Delacroix.  Ary  Scheifer  was  an  eloquent 
partisan  of  romanticism,  yet  his  "Dante  and  Reatrice"  and 
his  "Temptation  of  Christ"  are  admirable  only  from  the  aca- 
demic point  of  view.  Delaroche's  "Hemicycle"  and  his  many 
historical  tableaux  are  surely  in  the  classic  vein,  however  free 
they  may  seem  in  subject  and  treatment  by  contrast  with 
the  works  of  David  and  Ingres.  They  leave  us  equally  cold,  at 
all  events,  and  in  the  same  way — for  the  same  reason.  They 
betray  the  painter's  preoccupation  with  art  rather  than  with 
nature.  They  do,  in  truth,  differ  widely  from  the  works  which 
they  succeeded,  but  the  difference  is  not  temperamental.  They 
suggest  the  French  phrase,  plus  fa  change,  phis  cest  la  meme 
chose,  Gerome,  for  example,  feels  the  exhilaration  of  the  free 
air  of  romanticism  fanning  his  enthusiasm.  He  does  not  con- 
fine himself,  as,  bom  a  decade  or  two  earher,  certainly  he 
would  have  done,  to  classic  subject.  He  follows  Decamps  and 
Marilhat  to  the  Orient,  which  he  paints  with  the  utmost  free- 
dom, so  far  as  the  choice  of  theme  is  concerned — descending 
even  to  the  danse  du  ventre  of  a  Turkish  caf^.  He  paints  his- 
torical pictures  with  a  reahsm  unknown  before  his  day.  He  is 
almost  equally  famous  in  the  higher  class  of  genre  subjects. 
Rut  throughout  everything  he  does  it  is  easy  to  perceive  the 

[63] 


FRENCH  ART 

academic  point  of  view,  the  classic  temperament.  David  as- 
suredly would  never  have  chosen  one  of  Chrome's  themes;  but 
had  he  chosen  it,  he  would  have  treated  it  in  much  the  same 
way.  Allowance  made  for  the  difference  in  time,  in  general 
feeling  of  the  aesthetic  environment,  the  change  in  ideas  as  to 
what  was  fit  subject  for  representation  and  fitting  manner  of 
treating  the  same  subject,  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to  say 
that  Ingres  would  have  sincerely  applauded  Gerdme's  "Cleo- 
patra" issuing  from  the  carpet  roll  before  Ceesar.  And  if  he 
failed  to  perceive  the  noble  dramatic  power  in  such  a  work  as 
the  "Ave,  Caesar,  morituri  te  salutant,"  his  failure  would  nowa- 
days, at  least  among  intelhgent  amateurs,  be  ascribed  to  an 
intolerance  which  it  is  one  of  the  chief  merits  of  the  romantic 
movement  to  have  adjudged  absurd. 

It  is  a  source  of  really  sesthetic  satisfaction  to  see  everything 
that  is  attempted  as  well  done  as  it  is  in  the  works  of  such 
painters  as  Bouguereau  and  Cabanel.  Of  course  the  feehng 
that  denies  them  large  importance  is  a  legitimate  one.  The 
very  excellence  of  their  technic,  its  perfect  adaptedness  to 
the  motive  it  expresses,  is,  considering  the  insignificance  of 
the  motive,  subject  for  criticism;  inevitably  it  partakes  of  the 
futihty  of  its  subject-matter.  Of  course  the  personal  value  of 
the  man,  the  mind,  behind  any  plastic  expression  is,  in  a  sense, 
the  measure  of  the  expression  itself  If  it  be  a  mind  interested 
in  "pouncet-box"  covers,  in  the  pictorial  setting  forth  of 
themes  whose  illustration  most  intimately  appeals  to  the  less 
cultivated  and  more  rudimentary  appreciation  of  fine  art — as 
indisputably  the  Madonnas  and  Charities  and  Oresteses  and 

[64] 


BOUGUEREAU 
THE  MADONNA  OF  CONSOLATION  —  DETAIL 


FRENCH  ART 

mnux-unx:  i^Kjiiit  of  view,  the  classic  temperament,  David 
nuredly  would  never  have  chosen  one  of  G^rome's  themr ^  • 
hid  he  chosen  it,  he  would  have  treated  it  in  much  th^  ^ 
way.  Allowance  made  W  the  difference  in  time,  in  gen< 
feeling  of  the  aesthetic  environment,  the  change  in  ideas  as 
what  was  fit  subject  for  representation  and  fitting  manne; 
treating  the  same  aifeject,  it  m  hardly  an  exaggerat'  *-  + 
th  at  Ingres  w     ' -'  *  -  » ^  •  -  '  ^  -  -  •  nlauded  Gc^rdnit  .^     v 

l?.?^*^""  *  -*  I  ijefore  Caesar.  And  it 

fa  tie  power  in  such  a  worl 

"*^     '^m  hHwce  would  now *t 
f^  be  ascribed  to  -^ 
erits  of  the  romant 

ti  I  to  see  e^cs;  t. 

"'  ^  in  the  works  of  s 

^    ^)f  course  the  fee 
p4.uu«iicc  IN  a  legitimate  one.  'i 
r   ^echnic,  its  perfect  adaptedness 
H,  is,  considering  the  insignificance 
.  juve,  buoject  lur  criticism;  inevitably  it  partakes  of 
luxmty  of  its  subject-matter.  Of  course  the  personal  valii 
the  man,  the  mind,  behind  any  plastic  expression  is,  in  a  st 
* '  of  the  expression  itself.  If  it  be  a  mind  intere 

b<^x"  covers,  in  the  pictorial  setting  fortl 
e  illustration  ^most  intimately  appeals  to  the 
.    •     :  :     «  -d  more  rudimentary  appreciation  of  fine  art 
•  '    . .  :  ..    V     "^Tadonnas  and  Charities  and  Oresteses  m 


TI/vTHd        XC»ITA.10«>10'J  Hi)  AVIVfCKIAkl  3111 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

Bacchus  Triumphs  of  M.  Bouguereau  do — one  may  very  well 
dispense  himself  from  the  duty  of  admiring  its  productions. 
Life  is  short,  and  more  important  things,  things  of  more  sig- 
nificant import,  demand  attention.  The  grounds  on  which  the 
works  of  Bouguereau  and  Cabanel  are  admired  are  certainly 
insufficient.  But  they  are  experts  in  their  sphere.  What  they 
do  could  hardly  be  better  done.  If  they  appeal  to  a  bourgeois, 
a  philistine  ideal  of  beauty,  of  interest,  they  do  it  with  a  per- 
fection that  is  pleasing  in  itself.  No  one  else  does  it  half  so 
well.  To  minds  to  which  they  appeal  at  all,  they  appeal  with 
the  force  of  finality;  for  these  they  create  as  well  as  illustrate 
the  type  of  what  is  admirable  arid  lovely.  It  is  as  easy  to  ac- 
count for  their  popularity  as  it  is  to  perceive  its  transitory 
quality.  But  not  only  is  it  a  mark  of  limitation  to  refuse  all 
interest  to  such  a  work  as,  for  example,  M.  CabaneFs  "Birth 
of  Venus,"  in  the  painting  of  which  a  vast  deal  of  technical 
expertness  is  enjoyably  evident,  and  which  in  every  respect  of 
motive  and  execution  is  far  above  similar  things  done  else- 
where than  in  France;  it  is  a  still  greater  error  to  confound 
such  painters  as  M.  Cabanel  and  M.  Bouguereau  with  other 
painters  whose  classic  temperament  has  been  subjected  to  the 
universal  romantic  influence  equally  with  theirs,  but  whose 
production  is  as  different  from  theirs  as  is  that  of  the  thorough 
and  pure  romanticists,  the  truly  poetic  painters. 

The  instinct  of  simpUfication  is  an  intelligent  and  sound 
one.  Its  satisfaction  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  efficient  ac- 
tion of  any  kind,  and  indeed  the  basis  of  all  fruitful  philosophy. 
But  in  criticism  this  instinct  can  only  be  satisfied  inteUigently 

[65] 


FRENCH  ART 

and  soundly  by  a  consideration  of  everything  appealing  to 
consideration,  and  not  at  all  by  heated  and  wilful,  or  superior 
and  supercilious,  exclusions.  Catholicity  of  appreciation  is  the 
^  secret  of  critical  felicity.  To  follow  the  line  of  least  resistance, 
not  to  take  into  account  those  elements  of  a  problem,  those 
characteristics  of  a  subject,  to  which,  superficially  and  at  first 
thought,  one  is  insensitive,  is  to  dispense  one's  self  from  a 
great  deal  of  particularly  disagreeable  industry,  but  the  result 
is  only  transitorily  agreeable  to  the  sincere  intelligence.  It  is  in 
criticism,  I  think,  though  no  doubt  in  criticism  alone,  prefer- 
able to  lose  one's  self  in  a  maze  of  perplexity — distressing  as 
this  is  to  the  critic  who  appreciates  the  indispensability  of 
clairvoyance  in  criticism — rather  than  to  reach  swiftly  and 
simply  a  conclusion  which  candor  would  have  foreseen  as  the 
inevitable  and  unjudicial  result  of  following  one's  own  likes 
and  whims,  and  one's  contentment  with  which  must  be  alloyed 
with  a  haunting  sense  of  insecurity.  In  criticism  it  is  perhaps 
better  to  keep  balancing  counter-considerations  than  to  deter- 
/  mine  brutally  by  excluding  a  whole  set  of  them  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  assigning  them  their  true  weight.  In  this  way,  at 
least,  one  preserves  the  attitude  of  poise,  and  poise  is  perhaps 
the  one  essential  element  of  criticism.  In  a  word,  that  catho- 
licity of  sensitiveness  which  may  be  called  mere  impression- 
ism, behind  which  there  is  no  body  of  doctrine  at  all,  is  more 
truly  critical  than  intolerant  depreciation  or  unreflecting  en- 
thusiasm. "The  main  thing  to  do,"  says  Mr.  Arnold,  in  a  sig- 
nificant passage,  "is  to  get  one's  self  out  of  the  way  and  let 
humanity  judge." 

[66] 


H 

o 


/?; 

w 

Q 

Q 

a: 

H 

o 

< 
o 


FRENCH  ART 

.nnnr^lr  by  a  consideratioii  of  everything  appeaiii.^ 
i...  .....»;,  and  not  at  all  by  heated  and  mlful,  or  super 

.^J  supercilious,  exclusions.  Catholicity  of  app^^  '«^^'^^»  ^^  ^ 
secret  of  critical  felicity.  To  follow  the  line  of  .  .  ,o 
not  to  take  into  account  those  elements  of  a  proble...,  ^.. 
characteristics  of  a  subject,  to  which,  superficially  and  at  fi] 
thought,  one  is  ii^^'^'i  '^ive,  is  to  dispense  ones  self  from 
great  deal  of  part. ^ .,.-.; ^  di?=j^*<i^*'»  *  «W#^»  in'^^stry,  but  the  resr 
is  only  tnmaitorily  «or^.,.«Klir  lligence.  It  is 

criticism,  I  ^^^'"^'  >•  uirtii*^   nr^^fi 

able  to  li^ 


S..t^V«i.OI 


,jjensability  of 
to  jpeach  swiftly  an 
....,.:.::.    .   *,id  have  foreseen  as  ti 
result  of  following  one's  own  lik 
..r.f  i^^ent  with  which  must  be  alloy* 
UvT    Tti  criticism  it  is  perhaj^/ 
* ,  X  ^^ .  V  ^  .«^  .derations  than  to  detc^ 
;.>  ^j  v^^K^xUi^aig  a  whole  set  of  them  becau^  oft 
>f  assigning  them  their  true  weight.  In  this  way,  a* 
leasts  one  preserves  the  attitude  of  poise,  and  poise  is  perhar 
the  one  essential  element  of  criticism.  In  a  word,  that  cath 
lidty  of  sensitivOTess  which  may  be  called  mere  impressioi 
sm,  b^iBd  which  there  is  no  body  of  doctrine  at  all,  is  moi 
r»>r»K  ^*m+'ir.al  than  intolerant  depreciation  or  unreflecting  ei 
•  The.  T>.oi\>  fiviiig  to  do,"  says  Mr.  Arnold,  in  a  sii 
^/  v-,**^>.,    . ,  WW  gjet  one's  self  out  of  the  way  and  ]♦ 

[  m] 


lA  L  K.  r       \Ji 


C  C    C  C   t 

'   c   , 
c  c  c  c  c 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

It  is  temptingly  simple  to  deny  all  importance  to  painters 
who  are  not  poetic  painters.  And  the  temptation  is  especially 
seductive  when  the  prosaic  painters  are  paralleled  by  such  a 
distinguished  succession  of  their  truly  poetic  brethren  as  are 
the  painters  of  the  romantic  epoch  who  are  possessed  of  the 
classic  temperament.  But  real  criticism  immediately  suggests 
that  prose  has  its  place  in  painting  as  in  literature.  In  htera- 
ture  we  do  not  insist  even  that  the  poets  be  poetic.  Poetic  is 
not  the  epithet  that  would  be  appUed,  for  instance,  to  French 
classic  verse  or  the  English  verse  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
compared  with  the  poetry,  French  or  EngUsh,  which  we  mean 
when  we  speak  of  poetry.  Yet  no  one  would  think  of  denying 
the  value  of  Dryden  or  even  of  Boileau.  No  one  would  even 
insist  that,  distinctly  prosaic  as  are  the  quahties  of  Boileau — 
and  I  should  say  his  was  a  crucial  instance — he  would  have 
done  better  to  abjure  verse.  And  painting,  in  a  wide  sense,  is 
just  as  legitimately  the  expression  of  ideas  in  form  and  color 
as  literature  is  the  expression  of  ideas  in  words.  It  is  perfectly 
plain  that  Meissonier  was  not  especially  enamoured  of  beauty, 
as  Corot,  as  Troyon,  as  Decamps  was.  But  nothing  could  be 
less  critical  than  to  deny  Meissonier's  importance  and  the 
legitimate  interest  he  has  for  every  educated  and  intelligent 
person,  in  spite  of  his  hteralness  and  his  insensitiveness  to  the 
element  of  beauty,  and  indeed  to  any  truly  pictorial  signifi- 
cance whatever  in  the  wide  range  of  subjects  that  he  essayed, 
with,  in  an  honorable  sense,  such  distinguished  success. 

Especially  in  America,  I  think,  where  of  recent  years  we 
have  shown  an  Athenian  sensitiveness  to  new  impressions,  the 

[67] 


FRENCH  ART 

direct  descendants  of  the  classic  period  of  French  painting 
have  suffered  from  the  popularity  of  the  Fontainebleau  group. 
Their  legitimate  attachment  to  art,  instead  of  the  Fontaine- 
bleau absorption  in  nature,  has  given  them  a  false  reputation 
of  artificiality.  But  the  prose  element  in  art  has  its  justifica- 
tion as  well  as  the  poetic,  and  it  is  witness  of  a  narrow  culture 
to  fail  in  appreciation  of  its  admirable  accomplishment.  The 
academic  wing  of  the  French  romantic  painting  is  marked 
precisely  by  a  breadth  of  culture  that  is  itself  a  source  of 
agreeable  and  elevated  interest.  The  neo-Grec  painters  are 
thoroughly  educated.  They  lack  the  picturesque  and  unex- 
pected note  of  their  poetic  brethren — they  lack  the  moving 
and  interpreting,  the  elevating  and  exquisite  touch  of  these; 
nay,  they  lack  the  penetrating  distinction  that  radiates  even 
from  rusticity  itself  when  it  is  inspired  and  transfigured  as  it 
appears  in  such  works  as  those  of  Millet  and  Rousseau.  But 
their  distinction  is  not  less  real  for  being  the  distinction  of 
cultivation  rather  than  altogether  native  and  absolute.  It  is 
perhaps  even  more  marked,  more  pervasive,  more  directly 
associated  with  the  painter's  aim  and  effect.  One  feels  that 
they  are  familiar  with  the  philosophy  of  art,  its  history  and 
practice,  that  they  are  articulate  and  eclectic,  that  for  being 
less  personal  and  powerful  their  horizon  is  less  limited,  their 
purely  intellectual  range,  at  all  events,  and  in  many  cases 
their  aesthetic  interest,  wider.  They  have  more  the  cultivated 
man's  bent  for  experimentation,  for  variety.  They  care  more 
scrupulously  for  perfection,  for  form.  With  a  far  inferior  sense 
of  reality  and  far  less  felicity  in  dealing  with  it,  their  sapient 

[68] 


FRENCH  ART 

(lirecv  V.    .  cudants  of  the  classic  period  of  French  paintiT) 

ifiiifered  from  the  popularity  of  the  Fontainebleau  grouf 

;   legitimate  attachment  to  art,  instead  of  the  Fontain* 

i^iu  absorption  in  nature,  has  given  them  a  false  reputatio 

;     vi'  artificiality.  But  the  prose  element  in  art  has  its  justificr 

f !  ^vtion  as  well  as  the  poetic,  and  it  is  witness  of  a  narrow  cultur 

*^o  fail  in  appreciation  of  its  admirable  accompUshment.  Th 

ticademic  wing  of  the  French  romantic  painting  is  marke; 

precisely  by  a  b^rndth  of  culture  that  is  itself  a  source  o 

agreeable  aad  ekvated  intend  The  neo-Grec  painters  art 

thoroughly  f^""«*-^    T^....    u.t    *t  *.  *-    uresque  and  unex 

p.>..4o.i  ».,f  *y  lack  the  movin 

i^ite  touch  of  thest 
.  v.*Mi  that  radiates  eve 
M*  j^'tred  Mid  transfigured  as  i 
,Y^/f»v3  .^^  those  of  Millet  and  Rousseau.  Bn 
,*.,wiivLiv^n  is  not  less  real  for  being  the  distinction  c 
liivivation  rather  than  altogether  native  and  absolute.  It  ' 
perhaps  even  mcnre  marked,  more  pervasive,  more  direct] 
associated  with  the  painters  aim  and  effect.  One  feels  thai 
they  are  familiar  with  the  philosophy  of  art;  its  history  anr^ 
practice,  that  they  are  articulate  and  eclectic,  that  for  beui, 
less  personal  and  powerful  their  horizon  is  less  limited,  thei 
purely  intellectual  range,  at  all  events,  and  in  many  case 
their  lesthetic  interest,  wider.  They  have  more  the  cultivate 
i^  man's  b«it  for  experimentation,  for  variety.  They  care  mor^ 

>  — pulously  for  perfection,  for  form.  With  a  fer  inferior  sense 

^  ^lity  and  £ur  less  felicity  in  dealing  with  it,  their  sapiei* 

w  [68] 

a: 


c  c  c 
:  c  c  c 


:  c  c  c 
c  c  c 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

skill  in  dealing  with  the  abstractions  of  art  is  more  salient. 
To  be  blind  to  their  successful  handling  of  Une  and  mass 
and  movement,  is  to  neglect  a  source  of  refined  pleasure. 
To  lament  their  lack  of  poetry  is  to  miss  their  admirable 
rhetoric;  to  regret  their  imperfect  feeling  for  decorativeness 
is  to  miss  their  dehghtful  decorum. 


As  one  has,  however,  so  often  occasion  to  note  in  France 
— where  in  every  field  of  intellectual  effort  the  influence  of 
schools  and  groups  and  movements  is  so  great  that  almost 
every  individuahty,  no  matter  how  strenuous,  falls  naturally 
and  intimately  into  association  with  some  one  of  them — there 
is  every  now  and  then  an  exception  that  escapes  these  cate- 
gories and  stands  quite  by  itself.  In  modem  painting  such  ex- 
ceptions, and  widely  different  from  each  other  as  the  poles, 
are  Couture  and  Puvis  de  Chavannes.  Better  than  in  either 
the  true  romanticists  with  the  classic  strain,  or  the  academic 
romanticists  with  the  classic  temperament,  the  blending  of  the 
classic  and  romantic  inspirations  is  illustrated  in  Couture.  The 
two  are  in  him,  indeed,  actually  fused.  In  Puvis  de  Chavannes 
they  appear  in  a  wholly  novel  combination;  his  classicism  is 
absolutely  unacademic,  his  romanticism  unreal  beyond  the 
verge  of  mysticism,  and  so  preoccupied  with  visions  that  he 
may  almost  be  called  a  man  for  whom  the  actual  world  does 
not  exist — in  the  converse  of  Gautier  s  phrase.  His  distinction 
is  wholly  personal.  He  lives  evidently  on  an  exceedingly  high 

[69] 


FRENCH  ART 

plane — dwells  habitually  in  the  delectable  uplands  of  the  in- 
tellect. The  fact  that  his  work  is  almost  wholly  decorative  is 
not  at  all  accidental.  His  talent,  his  genius  if  one  chooses, 
requires  large  spaces,  vast  dimensions.  There  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  rather  profitless  discussion  as  to  whether  he  expressly 
imitates  the  primitifs  or  reproduces  them  sympathetically.  But 
really  he  does  neither;  he  deals  with  their  subjects  occasion- 
ally, but  always  in  a  completely  modern,  as  well  as  a  thor- 
oughly personal,  way.  His  color  is  as  original  as  his  general 
treatment  and  composition.  He  had  no  schooling,  in  the 
Ecole  des  Beaux  Arts  sense.  A  brief  period  in  Henri  Schef- 
fer's  studio,  three  months  under  Couture,  after  he  had  begun 
life  in  an  altogether  different  field  of  effort,  yielded  him  all 
the  explicit  instruction  he  ever  had.  His  real  study  was  done 
in  Italy,  in  the  presence  of  the  old  masters  of  Florence.  With 
this  equipment  he  revolutionized  modern  decoration,  estab- 
lished, at  any  rate,  a  new  convention  for  it.  His  convention 
is  a  httle  definite,  a  Uttle  bald.  One  may  discuss  it  apart  from 
his  own  handhng  of  it,  even.  It  is  a  shade  too  express,  too 
confident,  too  little  careless  both  of  tradition  and  of  the  typ- 
ical qualities  that  secure  permanence.  In  other  hands  one  can 
easily  imagine  how  insipid  it  might  become.  It  has  too  little 
body,  its  scheme  is  too  timorous,  too  vaporous  to  be  handled 
by  another.  Puvis  de  Chavannes  will  probably  have  few  suc- 
cessful imitators.  But  one  must  immediately  add  that  if  he 
does  not  found  a  school,  his  own  work  is,  perhaps  for  that 
reason,  at  all  events  in  spite  of  it,  among  the  most  important 
of  the  day.  Quite  unperturbed  by  current  discussions,  which 

[70] 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

are  certainly  of  the  noisiest  by  which  the  current  of  artistic 
development  was  ever  deflected,  he  has  kept  on  his  way,  and 
has  finally  won  all  suffrages  for  an  aesthetic  expression  that  is 
really  antagonistic  to  the  general  aesthetic  spirit  of  his  time. 
Puvis  de  Chavannes  is,  perhaps,  the  most  interesting  figure 
in  French  painting  to-day.  Couture  is  little  more  than  a  name. 
It  is  curious  to  consider  why.  Twenty  years  ago  he  was  stiU 
an  important  figure.  He  had  been  an  unusually  successful 
teacher.  Many  American  painters  of  distinction,  especially, 
were  at  one  time  his  pupils — Hunt,  La  Farge,  George  Butler. 
He  theorized  as  much,  as  well  as — perhaps  even  better  than — 
he  painted.  His  "Entretiens  d  atelier"  are  as  good  in  their  way 
as  his  '* Baptism  of  the  Prince  Imperial."  He  had  a  very  dis- 
tinguished talent,  but  he  was  too  distinctly  clever — clever  to 
the  point  of  sophistication.  In  this  respect  he  was  distinctly  a 
man  of  the  nineteenth  century.  His  great  work,  "Romains 
de  la  Dc^cadence,"  created  as  fine  an  effect  at  the  Centenary 
Exhibition  of  the  Paris  World's  Fair  in  1889  as  it  does  in  the 
Louvre,  whence  it  was  then  transferred,  but  it  was  distinctly 
a  decorative  effect — the  effect  of  a  fine  panel  in  the  general 
mass  of  color  and  design;  it  made  a  fine  centre.  It  remains 
his  greatest  performance,  the  performance  upon  which  chiefly 
his  fame  will  depend,  though  as  painting  it  lacks  the  quality 
and  breadth  of  "Le  Fauconnier,"  perhaps  the  most  interesting 
of  his  works  to  painters  themselves,  and  of  the  "Day-Dreams" 
of  the  New  York  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art.  Its  perma- 
nent interest  perhaps  will  be  the  historical  one,  due  to  the 
definiteness  with  which  it  assigns  Couture  his  position  in  the 

[71] 


FRENCH  ART 

evolution  of  French  painting.  It  shows,  as  everything  of  Cou- 
ture shows,  the  absence  of  any  pictorial  feeling  so  profound 
and  personal  as  to  make  an  impression  strong  enough  to 
endure  indefinitely.  And  it  has  not,  on  the  other  hand,  the 
interest  of  reality — that  faithful  and  enthusiastic  rendering 
of  the  external  world  which  gives  importance  to  and  fixes 
the  character  of  the  French  painting  of  the  present  day. 

Had  Regnault  lived,  he  would  have  more  adequately — or 
should  I  say  more  plausibly? — marked  the  transition  from  ro- 
manticism to  realism.  Temperamentally  he  was  clearly  a  thor- 
ough romanticist — far  more  so,  for  instance,  than  his  friend 
Fortuny,  whose  intellectual  reserve  is  always  conspicuous.  He 
essayed  the  most  vehement  kind  of  subjects,  even  in  the  clas- 
sical field,  where  he  treated  them  with  truly  romantic  trucu- 
lence.  He  was  himself  always,  moreover,  and  ideally  cared  as 
little  for  nature  as  a  fairy-story  teller.  In  this  sense  he  was 
more  romantic  than  the  romanticists.  His  "Automedon,"  his 
portrait  of  General  Prim,  even  his  "Salome,"  are  wilful  in  a 
degree  that  is  either  superb  or  superficial,  as  one  looks  at 
them;  but  at  any  rate  they  are  romantic  a  outrance.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  unmistakably  the  aspect  of  things  rather 
than  their  significance,  rather  than  his  view  of  them,  that 
appealed  to  him.  He  was  farther  away  from  the  classic  inspi- 
ration than  any  other  romanticist  of  his  fellows;  and  at  the 
same  time  he  cared  for  the  external  world  more  on  its  own 
account  and  less  for  its  suggestions,  than  any  painter  of  equal 
force  before  Courbet  and  Bastien-Lepage.  The  very  fact  that 
he  was  not,  intellectually  speaking,  whoUy  dans  son  assiette, 

[72] 


■a=,"t*.iS      -„-..;-. 


REGNAULT 
GENERAL  PRIM 


FRENCH  ART 

ev  ■  "rench  painting.  It  shows,  as  everything  of  Co\ 

ws,  the  absence  of  any  pictorial  feeling  so  profound 
pei*sonal  as  to   make  an  impression  strong  enough  to 
lire  indefinitely.  And  it  has  not,  on  the  other  hand,  tb 
iterest  of  reality — that  faithful  and  enthusiastic  rendering 
of  the  external  world  which  gives  importance  to  and  fixe 
the. character  of  the  FWnch  painting  of  the  present  day. 

Had  Regna^ '    ''     tl,  he  v  '      ^  more  adequately — or 

should  I  say  |i>  '     transition  from  ro- 

manticism t  was  clearly  a  thor- 

ce,  than  his  friend 
iways  conspicuous.  He 
oi  i»ubjects,  even  in  the  clas- 
'    truly  romantic  truer 
'  ideally  cared  as 
tius  sense  h< 
LS.  His  "Automedon,'  hr^ 
ran,  even  his  "Salome,"  are  wilful  in 
eitlier  superb  or  superficial,  as  one  looks  at 
>ut  at  any  rate  they  are  romantic  a  outrange.  At  the 
same  time  it  was  unmistakably  the  aspect  of  thuigs  rather 
than  their  significance,  rather  than  his  view  of  them,  th. 
appealed  to  him.  He  was  farther  away  from  the  classic  insp 

>n  than  any  other  romanticist  of  his  fellows;  and  at  the 
shatm  time  he  cared  t  emal  world  more  on  its  ov 

acccmn^  and  less  for  its*  suggestions,  than  any  painter  of  equal 
force  before  Cowrbet  and  Bastien-Lepage.  The  very  fact  thai 
*  '    ^•as  not,  iiritellectually  speaking,  wholly  dam  son  assieti 


ROMANTIC  PAINTING 

as  the  French  say,  shows  that  he  was  a  genius  of  a  transitional 
moment.  One's  final  thought  of  him  is  that  he  died  young, 
and  one  thinks  so  not  so  much  because  of  the  dramatic 
tragedy  of  his  taking  off  by  possibly  the  last  Prussian  bullet 
fired  in  the  war  of  1870-71,  as  because  of  the  essentially  ex- 
perimental character  of  his  painting.  Undoubtedly  he  would 
have  done  great  things.  And  undoubtedly  they  would  have 
been  different  from  those  that  he  did ;  probably  in  the  direc- 
tion— already  indicated  in  his  most  dignified  performance — 
of  giving  more  consistency,  more  vivid  definiteness,  more  real- 
ity, even,  to  his  already  striking  conceptions. 


[73] 


Ill 

REALISTIC  PAINTING 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 


TO  an  intelligence  fully  and  acutely  alive,  its  own  time 
must,  I  think,  be  more  interesting  than  any  other.  The 
sentimental,  the  scholastic,  the  speculative  temperament  may 
look  before  or  after  with  longing  or  regret;  but  that  sanity  of 
mind  which  is  practical  and  productive  must  find  its  most 
agreeable  sensations  in  the  data  to  which  it  is  intimately  and 
inexorably  related.  The  Hght  upon  Greek  hterature  and  art  for 
which  we  study  Greek  history,  the  hght  upon  Roman  history 
for  which  we  study  Latin  Hterature  and  art,  are  admirable  to 
us  in  very  exact  proportion  as  we  study  them  for  our  ends.  To 
every  man  and  every  nation  that  really  breathes,  true  vitaHty 
of  soul  depends  upon  saying  to  one's  self,  with  an  emotion  of 
equivalent  intensity  to  the  emotion  of  patriotism  celebrated  in 
Scott's  famiUar  hnes.  This  is  my  own,  my  native  era  and  en- 
vironment. Culture  is  impossible  apart  from  eosmopohtanism, 
but  self-respect  is  more  indispensable  even  than  culture. 
French  art  alone  at  the  present  time  possesses  absolute  self- 
respect.  It  possesses  this  quaUty  in  an  eminent,  in  even  an 
excessive  degree;  but  it  possesses  it,  and  in  virtue  of  it  is  en- 
dued with  a  preservative  quality  that  saves  it  from  the  emp- 
tiness of  imitation  and  the  enervation  of  dilettantism.  It  has, 
in  consequence,  escaped  that  recrudescence  of  the  primitive 
and  inchoate  known  in  England  and  among  ourselves  as  pre-/ 
Raphaehtism.  It  has  escaped  also  that  almost  abject  worship 

[77] 


FRENCH  ART 

of  classic  models  which  Winckelmann  and  Canova  made  uni- 
versal in  Germany  and  Italy — not  to  speak  of  its  echoes  else- 
where. It  has  always  stood  on  its  own  feet,  and,  however 
lacking  in  the  higher  qualities  of  imaginative  initiative,  on  the 
one  hand,  and  however  addicted  to  the  academic  and  the  tra- 
ditional on  the  other,  has  always  both  respected  its  aesthetic 
heritage  and  contributed  something  of  its  own  thereto. 

Why  should  not  one  feel  the  same  quick  interest,  the  same 
instinctive  pride  in  his  time  as  in  his  country?  Is  not  sympathy 
with  what  is  modern,  instant,  actual,  and  apposite  a  fair  par- 
allel of  patriotism?  Neglect  of  other  times  in  the  *'heir  of  all 
the  ages"  is  analogous  to  chauvinism,  and  indicative  of  as  ill- 
judged  an  attitude  as  that  of  provincial  bUndness  to  other  con- 
temporary points  of  view  and  systems  of  philosophy  than  one's 
own.  Culture  is  equally  hostile  to  both,  and  in  art  culture  is  as 
important  a  factor  as  it  is  in  less  special  fields  of  activity  and 
endeavor.  But  in  art,  as  elsewhere,  culture  is  a  means  to  an 
actual,  present  end,  and  the  pre-Raphaelite  sentiment  that  dic- 
tates mere  reproduction  of  what  was  once  a  genuine  expression 
is  as  sterile  as  servile  imitation  of  exotic  modes  of  thought, 
dress,  and  demeanor  is  universally  felt  to  be.  The  past — the 
antique,  the  renaissance,  the  classic,  and  romantic  ideals  are  to 
be  used,  not  adopted ;  in  the  spirit  of  Goethe,  at  once  the  most 
original  of  modern  men  and  the  most  saturated  with  culture, 
exhibited  in  his  famous  saying:  "Nothing  do  I  call  my  own 
which  having  inherited  I  have  not  reconquered  for  myself." 

It  would  indeed  be  a  singular  thing  were  the  field  of  aesthetics 
the  only  one  uninvaded  by  the  scientific  spirit  of  the  time.  The 

[78] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 
one  force  especially  characteristic  of  our  era  is,  I  suppose,  the 
scientific  spirit.  It  is  at  any  rate  everywhere  manifest,  and  it 
possesses  the  best  intellects  of  the  century.  A  priori  one  may 
argue  about  its  hostihty,  essential  or  other,  to  the  artistic,  the 
constructive  spirit ;  but  to  do  so  is  at  the  most  to  beat  the  air, 
to  waste  one's  breath,  to  Ruskinize,  in  a  word.  Interest  in  life 
and  the  world,  instead  of  speculation  or  self-expression,  is  the 
"note"  of  the  day.  The  individual  has  withered  terribly.  He 
is  supplanted  by  the  type,  Materiahsm  has  its  positive  gospel; 
it  is  not  at  all  the  formulated  expression  of  Goethe's  "spirit 
that  denies."  Nature  has  acquired  new  dignity.  She  cannot  be 
studied  too  closely,  nor  too  long.  The  secret  of  the  universe  is 
now  pursued  through  observation,  as  formerly  it  was  through 
fasting  and  prayer.  Nothing  is  sacred  nowadays  because  every- 
thing receives  respect.  If  absolute  beauty  is  now  smiled  at  as  a 
chimera,  it  is  because  beauty  is  perceived  everywhere.  What- 
ever is  may  not  be  right — the  maxim  has  too  much  of  an  ex 
cathedra  sound — but  whatever  is  is  interesting.  Our  attitude 
is  at  once  humbler  and  more  curious.  The  sense  of  the  immen- 
sity, the  immeasurableness  of  things,  is  more  intimate  and  pro- 
found. What  one  may  do  is  more  modestly  conceived;  what 
might  be  done,  more  justly  appreciated.  There  is  less  confi- 
dence and  more  aspiration.  The  artist's  eye  is  "on  the  object" 
in  more  concentrated  gaze  than  ever  heretofore.  If  his  senti- 
ment, his  poetry,  is  no  longer  "inevitable,"  as  Wordsworth 
complained  Goethe's  was  not,  it  is  more  reverent,  at  any  rate 
more  circumspect.  If  he  is  less  exalted  he  is  more  receptive — 
he  is  more  ahve  to  impressions  for  being  less  of  a  philosopher. 

[79] 


FRENCH  ART 

If  he  scouts  authority,  if  even  he  accepts  somewhat  weakly 
the  thraldom  of  dissent  from  traditional  standards  and  canons, 
it  is  because  he  is  convinced  that  the  material  with  which  he 
has  to  deal  is  superior  to  all  canons  and  standards.  If  he  es- 
teems truth  more  than  beauty,  it  is  because  what  he  thinks 
truth  is  more  beautiful  in  his  eyes  than  the  stereotyped  beauty 
he  is  adjured  to  attain.  In  any  case,  the  distinction  of  the  re- 
alistic painters — like  that  of  the  realists  in  literature,  where, 
also,  it  need  not  be  said,  France  has  been  in  the  lead — is  mea- 
surably to  have  got  rid  of  solecisms ;  to  have  made,  indeed, 
obvious  solecisms,  and  solecisms  of  conception  as  well  as  of 
execution,  a  little  ridiculous.  It  is,  to  be  sure,  equally  ridicu- 
lous to  subject  romantic  productions  to  realistic  standards,  to 
blind  one  s  self  to  the  sentiment  that  saturates  such  romantic 
works  as  Scott's  and  Dumas  s,  or  Gericault's  and  Diaz's,  and 
is  wholly  apposite  to  its  own  time  and  point  of  view.  The  great 
difficulty  with  a  principle  is  that  it  is  universal,  and  that  when 
we  deal  with  facts  of  any  kind  whatever,  universality  is  an 
impossible  ideal.  Scott  and  Gdricault  are,  nowadays,  in  what 
we  have  come  to  deem  essentials,  distinctly  old-fashioned.  It 
might  be  well  to  try  and  imitate  them,  if  imitation  had  any 
salt  in  it,  which  it  has  not ;  or  if  it  were  possible  to  do  what 
they  did  with  their  different  inspiration,  which  it  is  not.  Mr. 
Stevenson  is,  I  think,  an  example  of  the  danger  of  essaying 
this  latter  in  literature,  just  as  a  dozen  eminent  painters  of  less 
talent — for  no  one  has  so  much  talent  as  Mr.  Stevenson — are 
examples  in  painting.  But  there  are  a  thousand  things,  not 
only  in  the  technic  of  the  romanticists  but  in  their  whole  atti- 

[80] 


FRENCH  ART 

i  *;  scouts  authority,  if  even  he  accepts  somewhat  weak^^ 
l$m  thraldom  of  dissent  from  traditional  standards  and  cane 
It  is  because  he  is  convinced  that  the  material  with  whicli 
has  to  deal  is  superior  to  all  canons  and  standards.  If  he 
teems  truth  more  than  beauty,  it  is  because  what  he  thi; 
truth  is  more  beautiful  in  his  eyes  than  the  stereotyped  beai 
he  is  adjured  to  attmn?  In  any  cas'    ^^'^^  distinction  of  the 


alistic  painters — like  that  of  i^' 
also,  it  need  not  be  said,  ^^•^^^ 
surably  to  have  gcit  ^' 
ob^ 


■4-Vt-»       |f» 


'tr\i\a     4? 


..L..4^.-* 


t,»  ovni  till  I' 


in  literature,  whc 
^^^^^  lead — is  na 
V.  made,  indeed, 
l^uan  as  well  as  of 
-y^^  equally  fidicii- 
standards,  * 
><i.tuicttc»  such  romar 
ricaults  and  Diazs,  am 
id  point  of  view.  The  gn 
^>i,i*ivuii^  ^im  mi— '--■'■'  "  '"^'*  '*  '-  --^-'va^,  and  that  wh< 
we  ^^i  wiA  ftit\^  ts    Muj  iviiiu  wjmtcver,  universality  is 
imfioiiil^  kMi.  Scott  and  G^ricault  are,  nowadays,  in  wl 
we  have  come  to  deem  essentials,  distinctly  old-fashioned.  II 
might  be  well  to  try  and  imitate  them,  if  imitation  had  ani 
salt  in  it,  which  it  has  not;  or  if  it  were  possible  to  do  whi 
they  did  with  thdr  diffei^it  inspiration,  which  it  is  not  M 
Stevenson  Is,  I  think,  an  example  of  the  danger  of  essayi 
this  li^tter  in  literature,  juit  m  a  d(»sen  eminent  painters  of  U 
talent — for  no  one  has  so  much  talent  as  Mr.  Stevenson- 
oles  in  painting.  But  there  are  a  thousand  things,  r 
I  tibe  technic  of  the  romanticists  but  in  their  whole  a 

[80] 


C   C  t  c  . 
C    €    C   t   ( 


<   C  C  (  c 

<:  t  c  c  c 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

tude  toward  their  art  and  their  material,  that  are  nowadays 
impossible  to  sincere  and  spontaneous  artists.  Details  which 
have  no  importance  whatever  in  the  ensemble  of  the  romantic 
artist  are  essential  to  the  reahst.  Art  does  not  stand  stiU.  Its 
canons  change.  There  is  a  constant  evolution  in  its  standards, 
its  requirements.  A  conventional  background  is  no  more  an 
error  in  French  classic  painting  than  in  tapestry ;  a  perfunc- 
tory scheme  of  pure  chiaro-oscuro  is  no  blemish  in  one  of 
Diaz's  splendid  forest  landscapes ;  such  phenomena  in  a  work 
of  RafFaelli  or  Pointelin  would  jar,  because,  measured  by  the 
standards  to  which  modem  men  must,  through  the  very  force 
of  evolution  itself,  subscribe,  they  can  but  appear  solecisms.  In 
a  different  set  of  circumstances,  under  a  different  inspiration, 
and  with  a  different  artistic  attitude,  solecisms  they  certainly 
are  not.  But,  as  Lady  Kew  says  to  Ethel  Newcome:  "You 
belong  to  your  belongings."  Our  circumstances,  inspiration,  ar- 
tistic attitude,  are  involuntary  and  possess  us  as  our  other  be- 
longings do. 

In  Gautier's  saying,  for  instance,  **I  am  a  man  for  whom 
the  visible  world  exists,"  which  I  have  quoted  as  expressing 
the  key-note  of  the  romantic  epoch,  it  is  to  be  noted  that 
the  visible  world  is  taken  as  a  spectacle  simply — significant, 
suggestive  or  merely  stimulant,  in  accordance  with  individual 
bent.  Gautier  and  the  romanticists  generally  had  little  con- 
cern for  its  structure.  To  many  of  them  it  was  indeed  rather 
a  canvas  than  a  spectacle  even — ^just  as  to  many,  if  not  to 
most,  of  the  realists  it  is  its  structure  rather  than  its  signifi- 
cance  that   altogether   appeals ;  the   romanticists   in  general 

[81] 


FRENCH  ART 

sketched  their  ideas  and  impressions  upon  it,  as  the  naturalists 
have  in  the  main  studied  its  aspects  and  constitution,  careless 
of  the  import  of  these,  pictorially  or  otherwise.  Indeed  one  is 
tempted  often  to  inquire  of  the  latter,  Why  so  much  interest 
in  what  apparently  seems  to  you  of  so  Httle  import  ?  Are  we 
never  to  have  your  skill,  your  observation,  your  amassing  of 
"documents"  turned  to  any  account?  Where  is  the  realistic 
tragedy,  comedy,  epic,  composition  of  any  sort?  Courbet's 
"Cantonniers,"  Manet's  "Bar,"  or  Bastien-Lepage's  "Joan  of 
Arc,"  perhaps.  But  what  is  indisputable  is,  that  we  are  irre- 
trievably committed  to  the  present  general  aesthetic  attitude 
and  inspiration,  and  must  share  not  only  the  romanticists' 
impatience  with  academic  formulae  and  conventions,  but  the 
realists'  devotion  to  Ufe  and  the  world  as  they  actually  exist. 
The  future  may  be  different,  but  we  are  living  in  the  present, 
and  what  is  important  is,  after  all,  to  hve.  It  is  also  so  difficult 
that  not  to  take  the  line  of  least  resistance  is  fatuity. 


II 


It  is  at  least  an  approximation  to  ascribe  the  primacy  of  real- 
ism to  Courbet,  though  ascriptions  of  the  kind  are  at  best  ap- 
proximations. Not  only  was  he  the  first,  or  among  the  first,  to 
feel  the  interest  and  importance  of  the  actual  world  as  it  is 
and  for  what  it  is  rather  than  for  what  it  suggests,  but  his 
feeling  in  this  direction  is  intenser  than  that  of  any  one  else. 
Manet  was  preoccupied  with  the  values  of  objects  and  spaces. 
Bastien-Lepage,  while  paintuig  these  with  the  most  scrupu- 

[82] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

lous  fidelity,  was  nevertheless  always  attentive  to  the  signifi- 
cance and  import  of  what  he  painted.  Courbet  was  a  pure 
pantheist.  He  was  possessed  by  the  material,  the  physical,  the 
actual.  He  never  varies  it  a  hair's-breadth.  He  never  lifts  it  a 
fraction  of  a  degree.  But  by  his  very  absorption  in  it  he  dig- 
nifies it  immensely.  He  illustrates  magnificently  its  possibih- 
ties.  He  brings  out  into  the  plainest  possible  view  its  inherent, 
integral  aesthetic  quahty,  independent  of  any  extraneity.  No 
painter  ever  succeeded  so  well  with  so  httle  art,  one  is  tempted 
to  say.  Beside  his,  the  love  of  nature  which  we  ascribe  to  the 
ordinary  reaUst  is  a  superficial  emotion.  He  had  the  sentiment 
of  reality  in  the  highest  degree ;  he  had  it  intensely.  If  he  did 
not  represent  nature  with  the  searching  subtlety  of  later  paint- 
ers, he  is  certainly  the  forerunner  of  naturalism.  He  has  abso- 
lutely no  ideality.  He  is  blind  to  all  intimations  of  immortahty, 
all  unearthly  voices. 

Yet  it  would  be  wholly  an  error  to  suppose  him  a  mere  Ut- 
eralist.  No  one  is  farther  removed  from  the  painstaking,  grub- 
bing imitators  of  detail  so  justly  denounced  and  ridiculed  by 
Mr.  Whistler.  He  has  the  generahzing  faculty  in  very  distin- 
guished degree,  and  in  very  large  measure.  Every  trait  of  his 
talent,  indeed,  is  large,  manly ;  but  for  a  certain  quaUfication 
— which  must  be  made — one  might  add,  Olympian.  This  quaU- 
fication perhaps  may  be  not  unfairly  described  as  earthiness — 
never  an  agreeable  trait,  and  one  to  which  probably  is  due  the 
depreciation  of  Courbet  that  is  so  popular  even  among  appre- 
ciative critics.  It  is  easy  to  characterize  Courbet  as  brutal  and 
material,  but  what  is  easy  is  generally  not  exact.  What  one 

[83] 


FRENCH  ART 

glibly  stigmatizes  as  brutality  and  grossness  may,  after  all,  be 
something  of  a  particularly  strong  savor,  enjoyed  by  the 
painter  himself  with  a  gusto  too  sterling  and  instinctive  to  be 
justifiably  neglected,  much  less  contemned.  The  first  thing  to 
do  in  estimating  an  artist's  accomplishment,  which  is  to  place 
one's  self  at  his  point  of  view,  is,  in  Courbet's  case,  unusually 
difficult.  We  are  all  dreamers,  more  or  less — in  more  or  less 
desultory  fashion — and  can  all  appreciate  that  prismatic  turn 
of  what  is  real  and  actual  into  a  position  wherein  it  catches 
glints  of  the  imagination.  The  imagination  is  a  universal  touch- 
stone. The  sense  of  reality  is  a  special,  an  individual  faculty. 
When  one  is  poetizing  in  an  amateur,  a  dilettante  way,  as 
most  of  us  poetize,  a  picture  of  Courbet,  which  seems  to 
flaunt  and  challenge  the  imagination  in  virtue  of  its  defiant 
reaUty,  its  insistence  on  the  value  and  significance  of  the  pro- 
saic and  the  actual,  appears  coarse  and  crude.  It  is  not,  how- 
ever. It  is  very  far  from  that.  It  is  rather  elemental  than  ele- 
mentary— in  itself  a  prodigious  distinction.  No  modern  painter 
has  felt  more  intensely  and  reproduced  more  vigorously  the 
sap  that  runs  through  and  vivifies  the  various  forms  of  natural 
phenomena.  To  censure  his  shortcomings,  to  regret  his  imagi- 
native incompleteness,  is  to  miss  him  altogether. 

It  is  easy  to  say  he  had  all  the  coarseness  without  the  sen- 
timent of  the  French  peasantry,  whence  he  sprang ;  that  his 
political  radicalism  attests  a  lack  of  the  serenity  of  spirit  indis- 
pensable to  the  sincere  artist ;  that  he  had  no  conception  of  the 
beautiful,  the  exquisite — the  fact  remains  that  he  triumphs 
over  all  his  deficiencies,  and  in  very  splendid  fashion.  He  is,  in 

[84] 


'sSXii' ; 


--  'i^mmsm'L&Mj'M 


»-sr- 


S'- 


flk: 


•  <  >  •    •  • 

•  •  •  •    •    • 

•  • ••    •     < 


BASTIEN-LEPAGE 
JOAN  OF  ARC  —  DETAIL 


FRENCH  ART 

f '*'  '     ^'mmtmes  as  brutality  and  grossness  may,  after  a^^ 
.^   of  a  particularly  *  strong   savor,   enjoyed   b> 
^.  himself  with  a  gusto  too  sterling  and  instinctive  to  Ik 
;.-svifiably  neglected,  much  less  cohtenmed.  The  first  tiling  t'^ 
do  in  estiboiating  an  artist's  accomplishment,  which  is  to  pla< 
one's  self  at  his  point  of  view,  is,  in  Courbet's  case,  unusual 
difficult   ^^^^  "'•'^  *»^^  riv.>oi>...»v    nfiofe  or  less— in  more  o*-  ^ 
desultoi J  i.v.^. . * V, ,  t     ..  -,.  Appreciate  that  prismatic  . . 

0f  ^,1  ,f  :    ^.«i  mi4  1^  1^  n  positicaa  wherein  it  catch 

glints  KJi  i^^  xioa^'"  i.^«..;r    ^* ..»  :«  «  ,vr.;ve-sal  toucL 

.f..>.^   Tiw.  o^,>.^  liiM.yiUuai  faculty. 

dilettante  way,  as 
t,  which  seems  to 
'  virtue  of  its  defiant 
<j<t  a,yxu  significance  of  the  pro 
u:>  coarse  and  crude.  It  is  not,  hou- 
iij  that.  It  is  rather  dlemental  than  elr 
iiuMiui  '  -  ous  distinction.  No  modem  paint 

has  felt  utinu  m\  ^md  reproduced  more  vigorously  tiir 

sap  thut  runs  througii  and  vivifies  the  various  forms  of  natui-al 
phenomena.  To  censure  his  shortcomings,  to  regret  his  imaf ' 
native  incompleteness,  is  to  miss  him  altogether. 

It  is  easy  to  say  he  hitd  all  th       :  rseness  without  the  se 
tmient  of  the  French  pCfMSar"  ice  he  sprang;  that  hi:> 

political  radicalism  att^rts  a  iulk  oi  me  serenity  of  spirit  ind' 
1".;.^  i  tie  to  the  sincere  artist ;  that  he  had  no  conception  of  t) 
rieauiiiul,  the  exquisite- — the  fact  remains  that  he  triump 
''  *  '     '  fieiencies,  and  in  very  splendid  fashion.  He  is, 

I  ^  ] 


I 


A  i>/."i.'i>  i  -  /■-  1 1  i  r./.'ii 
J 1  /vTHCl     -  OH  A   iO  VI AOT, 


•    lit 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

truth,  of  all  the  realists  for  whom  he  discovered  the  way,  and 
set  the  pace,  as  it  were,  one  of  the  two  naturalistic  painters 
who  have  shown  in  any  high  degree  the  supreme  artistic  fac- 
ulty— that  of  generalization.  However  impressive  Manet  s 
picture  may  be;  however  brilhant  Monet's  endeavor  to  repro- 
duce sunlight  may  seem ;  however  refined  and  elegant  Degas's 
delicate  selection  of  pictorial  material — for  broad  and  master- 
ful generalization,  for  enduing  what  he  painted  with  an  inter- 
est deeper  than  its  surface  and  underlying  its  aspect,  Courbet 
has  but  one  rival  among  realistic  painters.  I  mean,  of  course, 
Bastien-Lepage. 

There  is  an  important  diiFerence  between  the  two.  In 
Courbet  the  sentiment  of  reahty  dominates  the  realism  of  the 
technic ;  in  Bastien-Lepage  the  technic  is  realistically  carried 
infinitely  farther,  but  the  sentiment  quite  transcends  realism. 
Imagine  Courbet  essaying  a  "Jeanne  d'Arc!"  Bastien-Lepage 
painting  Courbet's  "Cantonniers"  would  not  have  stopped,  as 
Courbet  has  done,  with  expressing  their  vitality,  their  actual 
interest,  but  at  the  same  time  that  he  represented  them  in 
far  greater  technical  completeness  he  would  also  have  occu- 
pied himself  with  their  psychology.  He  is  indeed  quite  as  dis- 
tinctly a  psychologist  as  he  is  a  painter.  His  favorite  problem, 
aside  from  that  of  technical  perfection,  which  perhaps  equally 
haunted  him,  is  the  rendering  of  that  resigned,  bewildered, 
semi-hypnotic,  vaguely  and  yet  intensely  longing  spiritual  ex- 
presidon  to  be  noted  by  those  who  have  the  eyes  to  see  it  in 
the  faces  and  attitudes  now  of  the  peasant  laborer,  now  of  the 
city  pariah.  All  his  peasant  women  are  potentially  Jeannes 

[85] 


FRENCH  ART 

d'Arc— "Les  Foins,"  "Tired,"  "Petite  Fauvette,"  for  example. 
The  "note"  is  still  more  evident  in  the  "London  Bootblack" 
and  the  "London  Flower-girl,"  in  which  the  outcast  "East 
End"  spiritlessness  of  the  British  capital  is  caught  and  fixed 
with  a  Zola-like  veracity  and  vigor.  Such  a  phase  as  this  is  not 
so  much  pictorial  or  poetic,  as  psychological.  Bastien-Lepage's 
happiness  in  rendering  it  is  a  proof  of  the  exceeding  quickness 
and  sureness  of  his  observation ;  but  his  preoccupation  with  it 
is  equally  strong  proof  of  his  interest  in  the  things  of  the  mind 
as  well  as  in  those  of  the  senses.  This  is  his  great  distinction,  I 
think.  He  beats  the  reaUst  on  his  own  ground  (except  perhaps 
Monet  and  his  followers — I  remember  no  attempt  of  his  to 
paint  sunlight),  but  he  is  imaginative  as  well.  He  is  not,  on  the 
other  hand,  to  be  in  anywise  associated  with  the  romanticists. 
Degas's  acid  characterization  of  him,  as  "  the  Bouguereau  of 
the  modern  movement,"  is  only  just,  if  we  remember  what 
very  radical  and  fundamental  changes  the  "modern  move- 
ment" impHes  in  general  attitude  as  well  as  in  special  expres- 
sion. I  should  be  inchned,  rather,  to  apply  the  analogy  to  M. 
Dagnan-Bouveret,  though  here,  too,  with  many  reserves  look- 
ing mainly  to  the  difference  between  true  and  vapid  sentiment. 
It  is  interesting  to  note,  however,  the  almost  exclusively  in- 
tellectual character  of  this  imaginative  side  of  Bastien-Lepage. 
He  does  not  view  his  material  with  any  apparent  sympathy, 
such  as  one  notes,  or  at  all  events  divines,  in  Millet.  Both  were 
French  peasants;  but  whereas  Millet's  interest  in  his  fellows  is 
instinctive  and  absorbing,  Bastien-Lepage's  is  curious  and  de- 
tached. If  his  pictures  ever  succeed  in  moving  us,  it  is  imperf- 

[86]  / 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 
sonally,  in  virtue  of  the  camera-like  scrutiny  he  brings  to  bear 
on  his  subject,  and  the  effectiveness  with  which  he  renders 
it,  and  of  the  reflections  which  we  institute  of  ourselves,  and 
which  he  fails  to  stimulate  by  even  the  faintest  trace  of  a 
loving  touch  or  the  betrayal  of  any  sympathetic  losing  of 
himself  in  his  theme.  You  feel  just  the  least  intimation  of  the 
doctrinaire,  the  systematic  aloofness  of  the  spectator.  In  moral 
attitude  as  well  as  in  technical  expression  he  no  more  assimi- 
lates the  various  phases  of  his  material,  to  reproduce  them 
afterward  in  new  and  original  combination,  than  he  expresses 
the  essence  of  landscape  in  general,  as  the  Fontainebleau 
painters  do  even  in  their  most  photographic  moments.  Both 
his  figures  and  his  landscapes  are  clearly  portraits — typical 
and  not  merely  individual,  to  be  sure,  but  somehow  not  ex- 
actly creations.  His  skies  are  the  least  successful  portions  of 
his  pictures,  I  think ;  one  must  generalize  easily  to  make  skies 
effective,  and  perhaps  it  is  not  fanciful  to  note  the  frequency 
of  high  horizons  in  his  work. 

The  fact  remains  that  Bastien-Lepage  stands  at  the  head  of 
the  modern  movement  in  many  ways.  His  friend,  M.  Andrd 
Theuriet,  has  shown,  in  a  brochure  published  some  years  ago, 
that  he  was  himself  as  interesting  as  his  pictures.  He  took 
his  art  very  seriously,  and  spoke  of  it  with  a  dignity  rather 
uncommon  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  studios,  where  there  is 
apt  to  be  more  enthusiasm  than  reflection.  I  recall  vividly  the 
impatience  with  which  he  once  spoke  to  me  of  painting  "to 
show  what  you  can  do."  His  own  standard  was  always  the 
particular  ideal  he  had  formed,  never  within  the  reach  of  his 

[87] 


FRENCH  ART 

ascertained  powers.  And  whatever  he  did,  one  may  say,  illus- 
trates the  sincerity  and  elevation  of  this  remark,  whether  one's 
mood  incline  one  to  care  most  for  this  psychological  side — 
undoubtedly  the  more  nearly  unique  side — of  his  work,  or 
for  such  exquisite  things  as  his  ** Forge"  or  the  portrait  of 
Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt.  Incontestably  he  has  the  true  tradi- 
tion, and  stands  in  the  Une  of  the  great  painters.  And  he 
owes  his  permanent  place  among  them  not  less  to  his  per- 
ception that  painting  has  a  moral  and  significant,  as  well  as 
a  representative  and  decorative  sanction,  than  to  his  perfect 
harmony  with  his  own  time  in  his  way  of  illustrating  this — 
to  his  happy  fusion  of  aspect  admirably  rendered  with  pro- 
found and  stimulating  suggestion. 


Ill 


Of  the  reaUstic  landscape  painters,  the  strict  impressionists 
apart,  none  is  more  eminent  than  M.  Cazin,  whose  work  is 
full  of  interest,  and  if  at  times  it  leaves  one  a  little  cold,  this 
is  perhaps  an  affair  of  the  beholder's  temperament  rather  than 
of  M.  Cazin's.  He  is  a  thoroughly  original  painter,  and,  what  . 
is  more  at  the  present  day,  an  imaginative  one.  He  sees  in 
his  own  way  the  nature  that  we  all  see,  and  paints  it  not 
literally  but  personally.  But  his  landscapes  invariably  attest, 
above  aU,  an  attentive  study  of  the  phenomena  of  light  and 
air,  and  their  truthfulness  is  the  more  marked  for  the  person- 
ality they  illustrate.  The  impression  they  make  is  of  a  very 
clairvoyant  and  enthusiastic  observation  exercised  by  an  artist 

[88] 


.^^i^  '" 


•     •  •.  •  •  »• 


CAZIN 
HAGAR  AND  ISHMAEL 


FRENCH  ART 

?i*4,    ri^^ined  powers.  And  whatever  he  did,  one  may  say,  illu^ 
.ue  sincerity  and  elevation  of  this  remark,  whether  one  - 
-  :^«l  incline  one  to  care  most  for  this^  psychological  si^^  • 
andoubtedly  the  more  nearly  unique  side — of  his  work,   m, 
for  such  exquisite  things  as  his  "Forge"  or  ttie  portrait  dp 
Mme.  Sarah  Bernhardt  Incontestably  he  has  the  true  trarr 
tion,  and  stands  in  th^  line  of  the  great  painters.  And  ir 
owes  his  pennanent  place  among  them  not  less  to  his  per 
ception  that  painting  ^^^'^   «  ^^■>..r■■^l  «».*!  *;.*^.;^^qjj^^  i^s  ^^jj  ^^ 
a  repres«itp^«^'-  ^^-^^  i  to  his  perfeelfe 

i^..rr.w...t^  ^.  liiustmting  this-f?f 

*^y  moKler^  with  pi 


III 


i  tv.     tx.. 


c  |m^*tters,  tlie  strict  impressioui; 
"  "       "' *^  M -.-.  ^tntiwnt  than  M.  Cazin,  whose  work 

M.i*    •*  iti^^iv^L,  and  tf  at  times  it  leaves  one  a  little  cold, 
m  periiaps  an  affisdr  of  the  beholder's  temperament  rather  tl 
oi  M.  Cazin  s.  He  is  a  thoroughly  original  painter,  and,  wl 
is  more  at  the  present  day,  iy£i  imaginative  one/JJe^sees 
his  own  way  the  nature  that  we  all  see,  and  paints  it 
titerally  but  personally.  But  his  landscapes  invariably  a1 
above  all^  an  attentive  study  of  the  phenomena  of  light  ajv 
aif,  and  their  truthfulness  is  the  more  marked  for  the  persoi 
,.ju.   ^i^^y  illustrate.  The  impression  they  nmke  is  of  « 
mtt¥mtr-      r\  enthusiasttc  observation  exercised  by  ^i  aixi 

^  [  88  ] 


■ «  •     • 


•         <-    '  • 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

who  takes  more  pleasure  in  appreciation  than  in  expression, 
whose  pleasure  in  his  expression  is  subordinate  to  his  interest 
in  the  external  world,  and  in  large  measure  confined  to  the 
delight  every  artist  has  in  technical  felicity  when  he  can  attain 
it.  Their  skies  are  beautifully  observed — graduated  in  value 
with  delicate  verisimilitude  from  the  horizon  up,  and  wind- 
swept, or  drenched  with  mist,  or  ringing  clear,  as  the  motive 
may  dictate.  All  objects  take  their  places  with  a  precision 
that,  nevertheless,  is  in  no  wise  pedantic,  and  is  perfectly  free. 
Cazin's  palette  is,  moreover,  a  thoroughly  individual  one.  It 
is  very  pure,  and  if  its  range  is  not  great,  it  is  at  any  rate  not 
grayed  into  insipidity  and  ineffectualness,  but  is  as  positive 
as  if  it  were  more  vivid.  A  distinct  air  of  elegance,  a  true 
sense  of  style,  is  noteworthy  in  many  of  his  pictures ;  not  only 
in  the  important  ones,  but  occasionally  when  the  theme  is  so 
slight  as  to  need  hardly  any  composition  whatever — the  mere 
placing  of  a  tree,  its  outline,  its  relation  to  a  bank  or  a  road- 
way, are  often  unmistakably  distinguished.  Cazin  is  not  exclu- 
sively a  landscape  painter,  and  though  the  landscape  element 
in  all  his  works  is  a  dominant  one,  even  in  his  "Hagar  and 
Ishmael  in  the  Desert "  and  his  "Judith  Setting  out  for  Holo- 
femes's  Camp"  (in  which  latter  one  can  hardly  identify  the 
heroine  at  aU),  the  fact  that  he  is  not  a  landscape  painter, 
pure  and  simple,  like  Harpignies  and  Pointelin,  perhaps  ac- 
counts for  his  inferiority  to  them  in  landscape  sentiment.  In 
France  it  is  generally  assumed  that  to  devote  one's  self  exclu- 
sively to  any  one  branch  of  painting  is  to  betray  limitations, 
and  there  are  few  painters  who  would  not  resent  being  called 

[89] 


FRENCH  ART 
landscapists.  Something,  perhaps,  is  lost  in  this  way.  It  wit- 
nesses a  greater  pride  in  accomphshment  than  in  instinctive 
bent.  But  however  that  may  be,  Cazin  never  penetrates  to 
the  sentiment  of  nature  that  one  feels  in  such  a  work  as 
Harpignies's  "Moonrise,"  for  example,  or  in  almost  any  of 
PointeUn's  grave  and  impressive  landscapes.  Hardly  less  truth- 
ful, I  should  say,  though  perhaps  less  intimately  and  elabor- 
ately real  (a  romanticist  would  say  less  superficially  real)  than 
Cazin's,  the  work  of  both  these  painters  is  more  pictorial.  They 
have  a  quicker  sense  for  the  beautiful,  I  think.  They  feel  very 
certainly  much  more  deeply  the  suggestiveness  of  a  scene. 
They  are  not  so  debonnaires  in  the  presence  of  their  problems. 
In  a  sense,  for  that  reason,  they  understand  them  better.  There 
is  very  little  feeling  of  the  desert,  the  illimitable  space,  where, 
according  to  Balzac,  God  is  and  man  is  not,  in  the  "Hagar 
and  Ishmael";  indeed  there  seems  to  have  been  no  attempt 
on  the  part  of  the  painter  to  express  any.  True  as  his  sand- 
heap  is,  you  feel  somehow  that  there  may  be  a  kitchen-garden 
or  the  entrance  to  a  coal-mine  on  the  other  side  of  it,  or  a 
little  farther  along.  And  the  landscape  of  the  "Judith,"  fine 
as  its  sweep  is,  and  admirable  as  are  the  cool  tone  and  clear 
distance  of  the  picture,  might  really  be  that  of  the  "south 
meadow"  of  some  particular  "farm"  or  other. 

The  contrast  which  Guillaumet  presents  to  Fromentin  af- 
fords a  very  striking  illustration  of  the  growth  of  the  reahstie 
spirit  in  recent  years.  Fromentin  is  so  admirable  a  painter 
that  I  can  hardly  fancy  any  appreciative  person  wishing  him 
different.   His  devoted   admirer  and   biographer,   M.   Louis 

[90] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

Gonse,  admits,  and  indeed  expressly  records,  Fromentin's  own 
lament  over  the  insufficiency  of  his  studies.  Fond  as  he  was  of 
horses,  for  instance,  he  does  not  know  them  as  a  draughtsman 
with  the  science  of  such  a  conventional  painter  in  many  other 
respects  as  Schreyer.  But  it  is  not  in  the  slightly  amateurish 
nature  of  his  technical  equipment — reahzed  perfectly  by  him- 
self, of  course,  as  the  first  critic  of  the  technic  of  painting 
among  all  who  have  ventured  upon  the  subject — that  his 
painting  differs  from  Guillaumet's.  It  is  his  whole  point  of 
view.  His  Africa  is  that  of  the  critic,  the  litterateur,  the  raffine, 
Guillaumet's  is  Africa  itself.  You  feel  before  Guillaumet's 
Luxembourg  canvases,  as  in  looking  over  the  slightest  of  his 
vivid  memoranda,  that  you  are  getting  in  an  acute  and  con- 
centrated form  the  sensations  which  the  actual  scenes  and 
types  rendered  by  the  painter  would  stimulate  in  you,  suppos- 
ing, of  course,  that  you  were  sufficiently  sensitive.  Fromentin, 
in  comparison,  is  occupied  in  picture-making — giving  you  a 
beautifully  colored  and  highly  intelligent  pictorial  report  as 
against  Guillaumet's  actual  reproduction.  There  is  no  question 
as  to  which  of  the  two  painters  has  the  greater  personal  inter- 
est; but  it  is  just  as  certain  that  for  abiding  value  and  endur- 
ing charm  personal  interest  must  either  be  extremely  great  or 
else  yield  to  the  interest  inherent  in  the  material  dealt  with, 
an  interest  that  Guillaumet  brings  out  with  a  fehcity  and  a 
puissance  that  are  wholly  extraordinary,  and  that  nowadays 
meet  with  a  readier  and  more  sympathetic  recognition  than 
even  such  deUcate  personal  charm  as  that  of  Fromentin. 


[91  ] 


FRENCH  ART 


IV 


So  thoroughly  has  the  spirit  of  realism  fastened  upon  the 
artistic  effort  of  the  present  that  temperaments  least  inclined 
toward  interest  in  the  actual  feel  its  influences,  and  show  the 
effects  of  these.  The  most  recalcitrant  illustrate  this  technically, 
however  rigorously  they  may  preserve  their  point  of  view. 
They  paint  at  least  more  circumspectly,  however  they  may 
think  and  feel.  An  historical  painter  like  Jean  Paul  Laurens, 
interested  as  he  is  in  the  memorable  moments  and  dramatic 
incidents  of  the  past,  and  exhibiting  as  he  does,  first  of  all, 
a  sense  of  what  is  ideally  forceful  and  heroic,  is  nevertheless 
clearly  concerned  for  the  realistic  value  of  his  representation 
far  more  than  a  generation  ago  he  would  have  been.  When 
Luminals  paints  a  scene  from  Gaulish  legend,  he  is  not  quite, 
but  nearly,  as  careful  to  make  it  pictorially  real  as  he  is  to 
have  it  dramatically  effective.  M.  Fran9ois  Flameng,  expand- 
ing his  book  illustration  into  a  mammoth  canvas  commemora- 
tive of  the  Vendean  insurrection,  is  almost  daintily  fastidious 
about  the  naturahstic  aspect  of  his  abundant  detail.  M.  Ben- 
jamin-Constant's artificially  conceived  seraglio  scenes  are  as 
realistically  rendered  as  is  indicated  by  a  recent  caricature 
depicting  an  astonished  sneak-thief,  foiled  in  an  attempted 
rape  of  the  jewels  in  a  sultana's  diadem,  painted  with  such 
deceptive  illusoriness  by  M.  Benjamin-Constant's  clever  brush. 
The  military  painters,  Detaille,  De  Neuville,  Berne-Bellecour, 
do  not  differ  from  Vernet  more  by  painting  incidents  instead 

[92] 


•  •      •    •  < 

•  •  •  •   • 

•  •  ••    • 


BONNAT 
THIERS 


FRENCFI  ART 


IV 


So  thoroughly  has  the  spirit  of  realism  fastened  upon  the 
artistic  effort  of  the  present  that  temperaments  least  inclined 
toward  interest  in  the  actual  feel  its  influences,  and  show  the 
effects  of  these.  The  most  recalcitrr*  *  ni,..  i  «.>f^  n^^  technically, 
however  rigorously  the-    -^        ^  point  of  ^iew. 

They  paint  at  least  *  \er  the    ^ 

^■^--•:  —'  ^-■'      '  Paul  Lciurc.M>, 

'  d  dramatic 

5i4s  ac  uut  ^,  iirst  of  alL 

id  heroi     ^    nevertheless 

r  liw  re^tiibiie  vr:    ''  -esentatioi* 

iir-  gt^nerf*^'--^ '  oeen.  When 

!  piiiiife  '    not  quite, 

bui  neai'^  piLTonsiiiy  reMi  as  he  is  to 

have  it  miai-  cuve.  M,  Fran9ois  Flwneng,  expand- 

ing liis  book  luusLiaucn  into  a  mammoth  canvas  commemora- 
tive of  the  Vendeah  insurrection,  is  almost  damtily  fastidious 
about  the  naturalistic  aspect  of  his  ^abundant  detail  M,  Ben 
jamin-Constant's  artificially  conceived  seraglio  scenes  are  as 
reaBsticaJly  rendered  as  is  indicated  by  a  recent  car* 
depicting  tonished  s^      '       'cf,  foiled  in  an  attempter 

rii|:^  of  the  jewels  in  a  suitauas  diadem,  painted  with  such 
deceptive  illu?5oriness  by  M.  Benjamin-Constants  clever  hru^h 
The  military  painters,  Detaille,  De  Neuville,  Beme-Bellecoi: 
^Ter  from  Vemet  more  by  painting  incidents  inster 
f  92  ] 


>      y    o       } 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 
of  phases  of  warfare,  by  substituting  the  touch  of  dramatic 
genre  for  epic  conceptions,  than  they  do  by  the  scrupulously 
naturalistic  rendering  that  in  them  supplants  the  old  academic 
symbolism.  Their  dragoons  and  Jantassins  are  not  merely  more 
real  in  what  they  do,  but  in  how  they  look.  Vernet's  look  hke 
tin  soldiers  by  comparison ;  certainly  hke  soldiers  de  conve- 
nance.  Aimd  Morot  evidently  used  instantaneous  photography, 
and  his  magnificent  cavalry  charges  suggest  not  only  carnage, 
but  Muybridge  as  well. 

The  great  portrait-painters  of  the  day — Carolus-Duran, 
Bonnat,  Ribot — are  realists  to  the  core.  They  are  very  far 
from  being  purely  portrait-painters  of  course,  and  their  realism 
shows  itself  with  splendid  distinction  in  other  works.  Few 
painters  of  the  nude  have  anything  to  their  credit  as  fine  as 
the  figure  M.  Carolus-Duran  exhibited  at  the  Paris  Exposition 
in  1889.  Ribot's  *' Saint  Sebastian"  is  one  of  the  most  powerful 
pictures  of  modem  French  art.  Bonnat's  "Christ"  became  at 
once  famous.  Each  picture  is  painted  with  a  vigor  and  point 
of  reaUstic  detail  that  are  pecuUar  to  our  own  time ;  painted 
to-day,  Bonnat's  fine  and  sculptural  '*FeUah  Woman  and 
Child,"  of  the  Metropohtan  Museum,  would  be  accented  in  a 
dozen  ways  in  which  now  it  is  not.  But  it  is  perhaps  in  por- 
traiture that  the  eminence  of  these  painters  is  most  explicit. 
They  are  at  the  head  of  contemporary  portraitists,  at  all 
events.  And  their  portraits  are  almost  defiantly  real,  void  often 
of  arrangement,  and  as  little  artificial  as  the  very  frequently 
prosaic  atmosphere  appertaining  to  their  sometimes  very  stark 
subjects  suggests.  A  portrait  by  Bonnat  blinks  nothing  in  the 

[  93  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

subject ;  its  aim  and  accomplishment  are  the  rendering  of  the 
character  in  a  vivid  fashion — including  the  reproduction  of 
cobalt  cravats  and  creased  trousers  even — which  would  have 
mightily  embarrassed  Van  Dyck  or  Velasquez.  Ribot  repro- 
duces Ribera  often,  but  he  deals  with  fewer  externals,  fewer 
effects,  taken  in  the  widest  sense.  Carolus-Duran,  the  "swell" 
portrait-painter  of  the  day,  artificial  as  he  may  be  in  the 
quaUty  of  his  mind,  nevertheless  seeks  and  attains,  first  of  all, 
the  sense  of  an  even  exaggerated  life-likeness  in  his  charm- 
ing sitters.  They  are,  first  of  all,  people;  the  pictorial  ele- 
ment takes  care  of  itself;  sometimes  even — so  overmastering 
is  the  reahstic  tendency — the  plush  of  the  chair,  the  silk  of 
the  robe,  the  cut  of  the  coat,  seems,  to  an  observer  who 
thinks  of  the  old  traditions  of  Titian,  of  Raphael,  of  Moroni, 
unduly  emphasized,  even  for  reaUsm. 


One  element  of  modernity  is  a  certain  order  of  eclecticism.  It 
is  not  the  eclecticism  of  the  Rolognese  painters,  for  example, 
illustrating  the  really  hopeless  attempt  to  combine  the  sup- 
posed and  superficial  excellences,  always  dissociated  from  the 
essence,  of  different  points  of  view.  It  is  a  free  choice  of  atti- 
tude, rather,  due  to  the  release  of  the  individual  from  the 
thraldom  of  conformity  that  ruled  even  during  the  romantic 
epoch.  Hence  a  great  deal  of  admirable  work,  of  which  one 
hardly  thinks  whether  it  is  realistic  or  not,  side  by  side  with 
the  more  emphatic  expressions  of  the  reahstic  spirit.  And  this 

[94] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

work  is  of  all  degrees  of  realism,  never,  however,  getting  very 
far  away  from  the  naturalistic  basis  on  which  more  and  more 
every  one  is  coming  to  insist  as  the  necessary  and  only  soUd 
pedestal  of  any  flight  of  fancy.  Baudry  is  perhaps  the  nearest 
of  the  really  great  men  to  the  Bolognese  order  of  eclecticism. 
I  suppose  he  must  be  classed  among  the  really  great  men,  so 
many  painters  of  inteUigence  place  him  there,  though  I  must 
myself  plead  the  laic  privilege  of  a  shght  scepticism  as  to 
whether  time  will  approve  their  enthusiasm.  He  is  certainly 
very  effective,  and  in  certainly  his  own  way,  idle  as  it  is  to 
say  that  his  drafts  on  the  great  ItaUans  are  no  greater  than 
those  of  Raphael  on  the  antique  frescos.  He  had  a  great  love 
of  color  and  a  native  instinct  for  it ;  with  perhaps  more  appre- 
ciation than  invention,  his  imagination  has  something  very 
personal  in  the  zealous  enthusiasm  with  which  he  exercised  it, 
though  I  think  it  must  be  admitted  that  his  reflections  of 
Tiepolo,  Titian,  Tintoretto  and  his  attenuated  expansions 
of  Michael  Angelo's  condensed  grandiosity,  recall  the  eclecti- 
cism of  the  Carracci  far  more  than  that  of  RaphaeL  But  his 
manner  is  the  modern  manner,  and  it  is  altogether  more  effec- 
tive, more  "fetching,"  to  use  a  modem  term,  than  anything 
purely  academic  can  be.  EHe  Delaunay,  another  master  of 
decoration,  is,  on  the  other  hand,  as  real  as  the  most  rigorous 
hteraUst  could  ask  of  a  painter  of  decorative  works.  Chartran, 
who  has  an  individual  charm  that  both  Baudry  and  Delaunay 
lack,  inferior  as  he  is  to  them  in  sweep  and  power,  is  perhaps 
in  this  respect  midway  between  the  two.  Clairin  is,  like  Maze- 
roUes,  a  pure  fantcdsiste.  Dubufe  fits,  whose  at  least  equally 

[95] 


1 


FRENCH  ART 

famous  father  ranks  in  a  somewhat  similar  category  with  Cou- 
ture, shows  a  distinct  advance  upon  him  in  reahty  of  render- 
ing, as  the  term  would  be  understood  at  present. 

In  other  departments  of  painting  the  note  of  reaUsm  is 
naturally  still  more  universally  apparent ;  but  as  in  the  work 
of  the  painters  of  decoration  it  is  often  most  noticeable  as  an 
undertone,  indicating  a  point  of  departure  rather  than  an  aim. 
Bonvin  is  a  reahst  only  as  Chardin,  as  Van  der  Meer  of  Delft, 
as  Nicholas  Maes  were,  before  the  jargon  of  realism  had  been 
thought  of.  He  is,  first  of  all,  an  exquisite  artist,  in  love  with 
the  beautiful  in  reality,  finding  it  in  the  humblest  material, 
and  expressing  it  with  the  gentlest,  sweetest,  aesthetic  severity  i 
and  composure  imaginable.  The  most  fastidious  critic  needs  \ 
but  a  touch  of  human  feeling  to  convert  any  characterization  ; 
of  this  most  refined  and  elevated  of  painters  into  pure  pane- 
gyric. VoUon's  touch  is  feUcity  itself,  and  it  is  evident  that  he 
takes  more  pleasure  in  exercising  and  exploiting  it  than  in  its 
successful  imitation,  striking  as  its  imitative  quahty  is.  Ger- 
vex  and  Duez  are  very  much  more  than  impressionists,  both 
in  theory  and  practice.  There  is  nothing  polemic  in  either. 
Painters  extol  in  the  heartiest  way  the  color,  the  creative 
coloration  of  Gervex's  "Rolla,"  quite  aside  from  its  dramatic  j 
force  or  its  truth  of  aspect.  Personal  feeUng  is  clearly  the  in- 
spiration of  every  work  of  Duez,  not  the  demonstration  of  a 
theory  of  treating  light  and  atmosphere.  The  same  may  be 
said  of  Roll  at  his  best,  as  in  his  superb  rendering  of  what 
may  be  called  the  modern  painter's  conception  of  the  myth  of 
Europa.  Compared  with  Paul  Veronese's  admirable   classic, 

[96] 


ROLL 
MILKMAID 


hxm^us  fethar  ranks  ii. 
ture,  shows  a  distinct  a 
ing,  as  the  term  woul^ 

In  other  departs 
naturally  stiE  more 
of  the  painters  o^  ^* 
undertone,  indicav*..^  ^  r^^* 
Bonvin  is  a  r^^tt  o?^^^ 
as  Nicholas  ^^ 
thought  of.  Ixv 
tim  beautifol  in 
an?^  r--'^--*--  - 


FRENCH  ART 

uilar  category  with  C 

^^^1  in  reality  of  rend 

V  present. 

w,v...^  the  note  of  realisii) 

...,  apparent;  hut  as  in  thewi 

on  if  iv  rtf^en  most  noticeable  as 

.,r*.  T'other  than  an  aiu* 


a A»c    \x  ■ 


-^  Meer  of  DeFt 
ism  had  beti- 
Liist,  in  love  with 
^^ blest  mater- * 
thetic  sevci 
^^ritic  nefcu^ 
iiacterization 
tr;  V  >  uito  pure  pane- 

It:;,  ^i»ii^»if  s  u-rucii  is  fell  'vident  that  he 

lakes  more  pleasure  in  exei*  r^iji-   u  .  i  a  it  than  in  '.'■■■ 

suce^miiA  imitaticm,  strilung  as  its  imitaLivc  quality  is.  Gtr 
vex  and  Duos  are  very  much  more  than  impressionists,  br"^* 
in  theory  and  practice.  There  is  nothing  polemic  in  eitl 
Painters  extol  in  the  heartiest  way  the  color,  the  creat 
coloration  of  Gervex's  "Rolla,"  quite  aside  from  its  dramatic- 
force  or  its  truth  of  aspect.  Personal  feeUng  is  clearly  the  in- 
ispiration  of  every  work  of  Duez,  not  the  demonstration  of  a 
theory  of  treating  light  and  atmosphere.  The  same  may  be 
$aid  of  RoU  at  his  best,  as  in  his  superb  rendering  of  w? '  ' 
may  be.  iqall^  the  modem  painter's  conception  of  the  mytb 
^  aropa.  C0«ii|ifgred  with  Paul  Veronese's  admirable  clas 

r  96  ] 


JJOH 


^   J        »  O        } 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

that  violates  all  the  unities  (which  Veronese,  nevertheless,  may 
readily  be  pardoned  by  all  but  literalists  and  theorists  for 
neglecting),  this  splendid  nude  girl  in  pldn  air,  flecked  with 
splotches  of  sunlight  filtered  through  a  sieve  of  leafage,  with 
her  realistic  taurine  companion,  and  their  environment  of  ve- 
ridically  rendered  out-of-doors,  may  stand  for  an  illustrative 
definition  of  modernity ;  but  what  you  feel  most  of  all  is  RoU. 
It  is  ten  chances  to  one  that  he  has  never  even  been  to  Venice 
or  thought  of  Veronese.  He  has  not  always  been  so  success- 
ful; as  when  in  his  "Work"  he  earned  Degas's  acute  com- 
ment :  "A  crowd  is  made  with  five  persons,  not  with  fifty." 
("II  y  a  cinquante  figures,  mais  je  ne  vols  pas  la  foule ;  on  fait 
une  foule  avec  cinq,  et  non  pas  avec  cinquante.")  But  he  has 
always  been  some  one.  Compare  with  him  L'Hermitte,  a 
painter  who  illustrates  sometimes  the  possibility  of  being  an 
artificial  realist.  His  "Vintage"  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum, 
his  "Harvesters"  at  the  Luxembourg,  are  excellently  real  and 
true  in  detail,  but  in  idea  and  general  expression  they  might 
compete  for  the  prix  de  Rome.  The  same  is  measurably  true 
of  LeroUe,  whose  pictures  are  more  sjnnpathetic — sometimes 
they  are  very  sympathetic — but  on  the  whole  display  less 
power.  But  in  each  instance  the  advocate  a  outrance  of  real- 
ism may  justly,  I  think,  maintain  that  a  painter  with  a  natu- 
ral predisposition  toward  the  insipidity  of  the  academic  has 
been  saved  from  it  by  the  inherent  sanity  and  robustness  of 
the  realistic  method.  Jean  B^raud,  even,  owes  something  to 
the  way  in  which  his  verisimihtude  of  method  has  reinforced 
his  artistic  powers.  His  delightful  Parisiennes — modistes'  mes- 

[97] 


FRENCH  ART 

sengers  crossing  wet  glistening  pavements  against  a  back- 
ground of  gray  mist  accented  with  poster-bedizened  kiosks 
and  regularly  recurring  horse-chestnut  trees;  elegantes  at 
prayer,  in  somewhat  distracted  mood,  on  prie-dieus  in  the 
vacant  and  vapid  Paris  churches;  seated  at  cafe  tables  on 
the  busy,  leisurely  boulevards,  or  posing  tout  bonnement  for 
the  reproduction  of  the  most  fascinating  feminine  ensemble 
in  the  world — owe  their  charm  (I  may  say  again  their  "fetch- 
ingness")  to  the  faithfulness  with  which  their  portraitist  has 
studied,  and  the  fidelity  with  which  he  has  reproduced,  their 
differing  types,  more  than  to  any  personal  expression  of  his 
own  view  of  them.  Fancy  Beraud's  masterpiece,  the  Salle  Graf- 
fard — that  admirable  characterization  of  crankdom  embodied 
in  a  sociahst  reunion — painted  by  an  academic  painter.  How 
absolutely  it  would  lose  its  pith,  its  force,  its  significance, 
even  its  true  distinction.  And  his  "Magdalen  at  the  Pharisee  s 
House,"  which  is  almost  equally  impressive — far  more  im- 
pressive of  course  in  a  literary  and,  I  think,  legitimate, 
sense — owes  even  its  literary  effectiveness  to  its  significant 
reaUsm. 

What  the  illustrators  of  the  present  day  owe  to  the  natural- 
istic method,  it  is  almost  superfluous  to  point  out.  "Illustra- 
tors" in  France  are,  in  general,  painters  as  well,  some  of  them 
very  eminent  painters.  Daumier,  who  passed  in  general  for  a 
contributor  to  illustrated  journals,  even  such  journals  as  Le  ^ 
Petit  Journal  pour  Eire,  was  not  only  a  genius  of  the  first 
rank,  but  a  painter  of  the  first  class.  Monvel  and  Montdnard 
at  present  are  masterly  painters.  But  in  their  illustration  as 

[98] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 
well  as  in  their  painting,  they  show  a  notable  change  from  the 
illustration  of  the  days  of  Daumier  and  Dord.  The  difference 
between  the  elegant  (or  perhaps  rather  the  handsome)  draw- 
ings of  Bida,  an  artist  of  the  utmost  distinction,  and  that  of 
the  illustrators  of  the  present  day  who  are  comparable  with 
him — their  name  is  not  legion — is  a  special  attestation  of  the 
influence  of  the  realistic  ideal  in  a  sphere  wherein,  if  anywhere, 
one  may  say,  reaUsm  reigns  legitimately,  but  wherein  also  the 
conventional  is  especially  to  be  expected.  One  cannot  indeed 
be  quite  sure  that  the  temptations  of  the  conventional  are  re- 
sisted by  the  ultra-realistic  illustrators  of  our  own  time,  Rossi, 
Beaumont,  Albert  Lynch,  Myrbach.  They  have  certainly  a 
very  handy  way  of  expressing  themselves;  one  would  be  justi- 
fied in  suspecting  the  labor-saving,  the  art-sparing  kodak,  be- 
hind many  of  their  most  unimpeachable  successes.  But  the  at- 
titude taken  is  quite  other  than  it  used  to  be,  and  the  change 
that  has  come  over  French  aesthetic  activity  in  general  can  be 
noted  in  very  sharp  definition  by  comparing  a  book  illustrated 
twenty  years  ago  by  Albert  Lynch,  with,  for  example,  Mau- 
passant's "Pierre  et  Jean,"  the  distinguished  realism  of  whose 
text  is  adequately  paralleled — and  the  implied  eulogy  is  by 
no  means  trivial — by  the  pictorical  commentary,  so  to  speak, 
which  this  first  of  modem  illustrators  has  supplied.  And  an 
even  more  striking  illustration  of  the  evolution  of  reahstic 
thought  and  feeling,  as  well  as  of  rendering,  is  furnished  by 
the  succession  of  Forain  to  Gr^vin,  as  an  illustrator  of  the  fol- 
hes  of  the  day,  the  characteristic  traits  of  the  Parisian  seamy 
side,  morally  speaking.  Gr^vin  is  as  conventional  as  Murger, 

[99] 


FRENCH  ART 

in  philosophy,  and — though  infinitely  cleverer — as  "Mars"  in 
drawing.  Forain,  with  the  pencil  of  a  reahsm  truly  Japanese, 
illustrates  with  sympathetic  incisiveness  the  pitiless  pessimism 
of  Flaubert,  Goncourt,  and  Maupassant  as  well. 

VI 

But  to  go  back  a  little  and  consider  the  puissant  individuali- 
ties, the  great  men  who  have  really  given  its  direction  to  and, 
as  it  were,  set  the  pace  of,  the  realistic  movement,  and  for 
whom,  in  order  more  conveniently  to  consider  impressionism 
pure  and  simple  by  itself,  I  have  ventured  to  disturb  the 
chronological  sequence  of  evolution  in  French  painting — a 
sequence  that,  even  if  one  care  more  for  ideas  than  for  chro- 
nology, it  is  more  temerarious  to  vary  from  in  things  French 
than  in  any  others.  To  go  back  in  a  word  to  Manet;  the; 
painter  of  whom  M.  Henri  Houssaye  has  remarked:  "Manet 
sowed,  M.  Bastien-Lepage  has  reaped." 

Manet  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  noteworthy  painters  ] 
that  France  or  any  other  country  has  produced.  His  is  the 
great,  the  very  rare,  merit  of  having  conceived  a  new  point  of 
view.  That  he  did  not  illustrate  this  in  its  completeness,  that 
he  was  a  sign-post,  as  Albert  Wolff  very  aptly  said,  rather  than 
an  exemplar,  is  nothing.  He  was  totally  unheralded,  and  he 
was  in  his  way  superb.  No  one  before  him  had  essayed — no 
one  before  him  had  ever  thought  of — the  immense  project  of 
breaking,  not  relatively  but  absolutely,  with  the  conventional. 
Looking  for  the  first  time  at  one  of  his  pictures,  one  says  that 

[100] 


L  HERMITTE 
THE  VINTAGE 


HiENCH  ART 
in  philosophy,  and— tb'^  5 nfioitely  cleverer — as  "Mars 
drawling.  Forain,  wi^^^'  -'^  -"  a  realism  truly  Japan 

Olusteites  with  syn  .^.v.  i  ..less  the  pitiless  pessiii 

of  Flaubert,  Gancoi*.     >^id.  Maup'^       ^  m  well. 


But  to  go  back  a  1 
ties,  the  gref^*    *" 

as  it  wei^^' 


disturb 


M. 


ill     'iA,U\     «.>tlfU/'5>.     ..IC^    I^U     ^ 


:Uiet , 


fixed:  **M'. 


paiBter  of  whom  M  ^^         ' 

sowed,  M.  .Ba!^leii-i^pji^^  iiu;s  rcapea. 

Manet  was  certainly  one  of  the  most  iioiewoimy  pan 
that  France  or  any  other  country  has  produced.  Ilh 
great,  the  very  rare,  merit  of  having  conceived  a  new  puiii 
view.  That  he  did  not  illustrate  this  in  its  completeness,  w 
be  w^as  a  sign-post,  as  Albert  Wolff  very  -     *         '      "' 
an  exemplar,  is  nothing.  He  was  totally  ucuieraiucy , 
»r»^  in  his  way  superb.  No  one  before  him  '     ^ 

otife  before' Mm  had  ever  t? -^  "  of — the  iiiiHiuiirsc  proie'i'i 

bre-«':%gi  %m%  rda-tively  but  ausomtely,  with  '^* -mventiui?: 

I  fer  ^m  first  time  at  one  of  his  picti 

[100] 


ITTIMHIH  .1 


-^^ 


Vn-' 


A  .vll 


REALISTIC  PAINTING  ,/> 
customary  notions,  ordinary  brushes,  traditional  processes  of 
even  the  highest  authenticity,  have  been  thrown  to  the  winds. 
Hence,  in4eed,  the  scandal  which  he  caused  from  the  first  and 
which  went  on  increasing,  until,  owing  to  the  acceptance,  with 
modifications,  of  his  point  of  view  by  the  most  virile  and 
vigorous  painters  of  the  day,  he  became,  as  he  has  become,  in 
a  sense  the  head  of  the  corner.  Manet's  great  distinction  is 
to  have  discovered  that  the  sense  of  reahty  is  achieved  with 
a  thousand-fold  greater  intensity  by  getting  as  near  as  pos- 
sible to  the  actual,  rather  than  resting  content  with  the  rela- 
tive, value  of  every  detail.  Every  one  who  has  painted  since 
Manet  has  either  followed  him  in  this  effort  or  has  appeared 
jejune. 

Take  as  an  illustration  of  the  contrary  practice  such  a  mas- 
terpiece in  its  way  as  Gerome's  "Eminence  Grise."  In  this  pic- 
ture, skilfully  and  satisfactorily  composed,  the  relative  values 
of  aU  the  colors  are  admirably,  even  beautifully,  observed.  The 
correspondence  of  the  gamut  of  values  to  that  of  the  light  and 
dark  scale  of  such  an  actual  scene  is  perfect.  Before  Manet, 
one  could  have  said  that  this  is  all  that  is  required  and  the 
best  that  can  be  secured,  arguing  that  exact  imitation  of  local 
tints  and  general  tone  is  impossible,  owing  to  the  difference 
between  nature's  highest  hght  and  lowest  dark,  and  the  poten- 
tiahties  of  the  palette.  In  other  words,  one  might  have  said 
that  inasmuch  as  you  can  squeeze  absolute  white  and  absolute 
black  out  of  no  tubes,  the  thing  to  do  is  first  to  determine  the 
scale  of  your  picture  and  then  make  every  note  in  it  bear  the 
same  relation  to  every  other  that  the  corresponding  note  in 

[  101  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

nature  bears  to  its  fellows  in  its  own  corresponding  but  differ- 
ent scale.  And  this  view  seemed  so  rational  as  applied  to  out- 
of-doors  that  it  governed  equally  the  painting  of  interiors, 
where  exact  imitation  of  local  values,  had  it  been  thought  of, 
would  have  been  seen  to  be  obviously  far  more  nearly  attain- 
able. This  is  what  Gerdme  has  done  in  the  "Eminence  Grise" 
— a  scene,  it  will  be  remembered,  on  a  staircase  in  a  palace 
interior.  Manet  inquires  what  would  happen  to  this  house  of 
cards  shored  up  into  verisimilitude  by  mere  correspondence,  if 
G^rome  had  been  asked  to  uncurtain  a  window  in  his  staircase 
and  admit  the  light  of  out-of-doors  into  his  correspondent  but 
artificial  scene.  The  whole  thing  would  have  to  be  done  over 
again.  The  scale  of  the  picture  running  from  the  highest  pal- 
ette white  to  the  lowest  palette  dark,  and  yet  the  key  of  an 
actual  interior  scene  being  much  nearer  middle-tint  than  the 
tint  of  an  actual  out-of-doors  scene,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
paint  with  any  verisimilitude  the  illumination  of  a  window 
from  the  outside,  the  resources  of  the  palette  having  already 
been  exhausted,  every  object  having  been  given  a  local  value 
solely  with  relation,  so  far  as  truth  of  representation  is  con- 
cerned, to  the  values  of  every  other  object,  and  no  effort  being 
made  to  get  the  precise  value  of  the  object  as  it  would  appear 
under  analogous  circumstances  in  nature. 

It  may  be  replied,  and  I  confess  I  think  with  excellent  reason, 
that  Gdr6me's  picture  has  no  sunlight  in  it,  and  therefore  that 
to  ask  of  him  to  paint  a  picture  as  he  would  if  he  were  paint- 
ing a  different  picture,  is  pedantry.  The  old  masters  are  still 
admirable,  though  they  only  observed  a  correspondence  to  the 

[  102  ] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 
actual  scale  of  natural  values,  and  were  not  concerned  with 
imitation  of  it.  But  it  is  to  be  observed  that,  successful  as  their 
practice  is,  it  is  successful  in  virtue  of  the  unconscious  co- 
operation of  the  beholder's  imagination.  And  nowadays  not 
only  is  the  exercise  of  the  imagination  become  for  better  or 
worse  a  little  old-fashioned,  but  the  one  thing  that  is  insisted 
on  as  a  starting-point  and  basis,  at  the  very  least,  is  the  sense 
of  reaUty.  And  it  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  way  in  which 
the  sense  of  reahty  has  been  intensified  by  Manet's  insistence 
upon  getting  as  near  as  possible  to  the  individual  values  of 
objects  as  they  are  seen  in  nature — in  spite  of  his  abandon- 
ment of  the  practice  of  painting  on  a  parallel  scale.  Things 
now  drop  into  their  true  place,  look  as  they  really  do,  and 
count  as  they  count  in  nature,  because  the  painter  is  no  longer 
content  with  giving  us  change  for  nature,  but  tries  his  best  to 
give  us  nature  itself.  Perspective  acquires  its  actual  signifi- 
cance, soUds  have  substance  and  bulk  as  well  as  surfaces,  dis- 
tance is  perceived  as  it  is  in  nature,  by  the  actual  interposition 
of  atmosphere,  chiaro-oscuro  is  aboUshed — the  ways  in  which 
reahty  is  secured  being  in  fact  legion  the  moment  real  instead 
of  relative  values  are  studied.  Something  is  lost,  very  likely — 
an  artist  cannot  be  so  intensely  preoccupied  with  reahty  as, 
since  Manet,  it  has  been  incumbent  on  painters  to  be,  without 
missing  a  whole  range  of  quaUties  that  are  so  precious  as 
rightly  perhaps  to  be  considered  indispensable.  Until  reality 
becomes  in  its  turn  an  effect  unconsciously  attained,  the 
painter's  imagination  will  be  held  more  or  less  in  abeyance. 
And  perhaps  we  are  justified  in  thinking  that  nothing  can 

[103] 


FRENCH  ART 

quite  atone  for  its  absence.  Meantime,  however,  it  must  be] 
acknowledged  that  Manet  first  gave  us  this  sense  of  reality  in 
a  measure  comparable  with  that  which  successively  Balzac, 
Flaubert,  Zola  gave  to  the  readers  of  their  books — a  sense  of 
actuality  and  vividness  beside  which  the  traditionary  practice 
seemed  absolutely  fanciful  and  mechanical. 

Applying  Manet's  method,  his  invention,  his  discovery,  to  i 
the  painting  of  out-of-doors,  the  plein  air  school  immediately 
began  to  produce  landscapes  of  astonishing  reality  by  confin- 
ing their  effort  to  those  values  which  it  is  in  the  power  of  pig- 
ments to  imitate.  The  possible  scale  of  mere  correspondence 
being  of  course  from  one  to  one  hundred,  they  secured  greater 
truth  by  painting  between  twenty  and  eighty,  we  may  say. 
Hence  the  grayness  of  the  most  successful  French  landscapes 
of  the  present  day — those  of  Bastien-Lepage's  backgrounds,  J 
of  Cazin's  pictures.  Sunlight  being  unpaintable,  they  confined 
themselves  to  the  representation  of  what  they  could  represent. 
In  the  interest  of  truth,  of  reality,  they  narrowed  the  gamut 
of  their  modulations,  they  attempted  less,  upheld  by  the  cer- 
tainty of  accomplishing  more.  For  a  time  French  landscape 
was  pitched  in  a  minor  key.  Suddenly  Claude  Monet  appeared. 
Impressionism,  as  it  is  now  understood,  and  as  Manet  had  not 
succeeded  in  popularizing  it,  won  instant  recognition.  Monet's 
discovery  was  that  light  is  the  most  important  factor  in  the 
painting  of  out-of-doors.  He  pushed  up  the  key  of  landscape  l 
painting  to  the  highest  power.  He  attacked  the  fascinating, 
but  of  course  demonstrably  insolvable,  problem  of  painting 
sunlight,  not  illusorily,  as  Fortuny  had  done  by  relying  on 

[  104  ] 


Q 
< 


FRENCH  ART 

quite  atone  tor  m  absence.  Meantime,  however,  it  must 
j^knowledged  that  Manet  first  gave  us  this  sense  of  k 
i  measure  comparabie  with  that  which  successively  l>ai 
rlaubert,  Zola  gave  to  the  readers  of  their  books—a  sens 
iictuality  and  vividness  beside  which  the  traditionaiy  prai 
seemed  absolutely  fanciful 

Applying  Manet's  m*  "  (m,  his  discover)' 

the  painting, of  out  -  school  immedial 

began  to  .  reality  by  corv 

itig  tbdir  etiort  l  ver  of  i 

ments  to  im'y  espondtr 

ecured  gre< 
may  say. 
Iandsc£ 
ckgrouii 
cs.  bun%til  *  \r  confined 

tiie  rt  t^uid  repres 

tiii.  mterait  of  1  ,  they  narrowed  the  gamut 

J.  thdr  modulations,  they  aiteinpted  less,  upheld  by  t- 
tainty  of  accomplishing  more.  For  a  time  French  landsca£»e 
was  pitched  inf  a  minor  key.  Suddenly  Claude  Monet  appeared. 
Impressionism,  as  it  is  now  understood,  and  as  Maliet  1 
succeeded  in  popularizing  it,  wow  instant  recognition.  Monel:^ 
discovery  was  that  light  is  the  most  important  factor  in  the 
painting  of  out-of-doors.  He  pushed  up  the  key  of  landsciipe 
]>  in  ting  to  the  highest  power.  He  attacked  the  fascinating, 
t  course  demonstrably  insolvable,  problem  of  painting 
;ht,  not  illusorily,  as  Foirtuny  had  done  by  relying  on  J 

[  10*  1 


c  c  c  t 

•  C  6* 


cc  c  c  c 
©  c  e  e 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

contrasts  of  light  and  dark  correspondent  in  scale,  but  posi- 
tively and  realistically.  He  realized  as  nearly  as  possible  the 
effect  of  sunlight — that  is  to  say,  he  did  as  well  and  no  better 
in  this  respect  than  Fortuny  had  done — but  he  created  a 
much  greater  illusion  of  a  sunlit  landscape  than  any  one  had 
ever  done  before  him,  by  painting  those  parts  of  his  picture 
not  in  sunlight  with  the  exact  truth  that  in  painting  objects 
in  shadow  the  palette  can  compass. 

Nothing  is  more  simple.  Take  a  landscape  with  a  cloudy 
sky,  which  means  diffused  light  in  the  old  sense  of  the  term, 
and  observe  the  effect  upon  it  of  a  sudden  burst  of  sunhght. 
What  is  the  effect  where  considerable  portions  of  the  scene 
are  suddenly  thrown  into  marked  shadow,  as  well  as  others 
illuminated  with  intense  light?  Is  the  absolute  value  of  the 
parts  in  shadow  lowered  or  raised?  Raised,  of  course,  by  re- 
flected light.  Formerly,  to  get  the  contrast  between  sunhght 
and  shadow  in  proper  scale,  the  painter  would  have  painted 
the  shadows  darker  than  they  were  before  the  sun  appeared. 
Relatively  they  are  darker,  since  their  value,  though  height- 
ened, is  raised  infinitely  less  than  the  value  of  the  parts  in 
sunhght.  Absolutely,  their  value  is  raised  considerably.  If, 
therefore,  they  are  painted  Ughter  than  they  were  before  the 
sun  appeared,  they  in  themselves  seem  truer.  The  part  of 
Monet's  picture  that  is  in  shadow  is  measurably  true,  far  truer 
than  it  would  have  been  if  painted  under  the  old  theory  of 
correspondence,  and  had  been  unnaturally  darkened  to  express 
the  relation  of  contrast  between  shadow  and  sunlight.  Scale 
has  been  lost.  What  has  been  gained?  Simply  truth  of  im- 

[105  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

pressionistic  effect.  Why?  Because  we  know  and  judge  and 
appreciate  and  feel  the  measure  of  truth  with  which  objects  in 
shadow  are  represented ;  we  are  insensibly  more  famihar  with 
them  in  nature  than  with  objects  directly  sun-illuminated,  the 
values  as  well  as  the  definition  of  which  are  far  vaguer  to  us  on 
account  of  their  blending  and  infinite  heightening  by  a  lumi- 
nosity absolutely  overpowering.  In  a  word,  in  sunlit  landscapes 
objects  in  shadow  are  what  customarily  and  unconsciously  we 
see  and  note  and  know,  and  the  illusion  is  greater  if  the  rela- 
tion between  them  and  the  objects  in  sunlight,  whose  value 
habitually  we  do  not  note,  be  neglected  or  falsified.  Add  to 
this  source  of  illusion  the  success  of  Monet  in  giving  a  juster 
value  to  the  sunlit  half  of  his  picture  than  had  even  been  sys- 
tematically attempted  before  his  time,  and  his  astonishing 
trompe-Voeil  is,  I  think,  explained.  Each  part  is  truer  than  ever 
before,  and  unless  one  have  a  specially  developed  sense  of  en- 
semble in  this  very  special  matter  of  values  in  and  affected  by 
sunlight,  one  gets  from  Monet  an  impression  of  actuality  so 
much  greater  than  he  has  ever  got  before,  that  he  may  be  par- 
doned for  feeling,  and  even  for  enthusiastically  proclaiming, 
that  in  Monet  realism  finds  its  apogee.  To  sum  up:  The  first 
realists  painted  relative  values;  Manet  and  his  derivatives 
painted  absolute  values,  but  in  a  wisely  hmited  gamut;  Monet 
paints  absolute  values  in  a  very  wide  range,  plus  sunlight,  as 
nearly  as  he  can  get  it — as  nearly  as  pigment  can  be  got  to 
represent  it.  Perforce  he  loses  scale,  and  therefore  artistic  com- 
pleteness, but  he  secures  an  incomparably  vivid  effect  of  re- 
ality, of  nature — and  of  nature  in  her  gayest,  most  inspiring 

[106] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

manifestation,  illuminated  directly  and  indirectly,  and  every- 
where vibrant  and  palpitating  with  the  light  of  all  our  physical 
seeing. 

Monet  is  so  subtle  in  his  own  way,  so  superbly  successful 
within  his  own  limits,  that  it  is  time  wasted  to  quarrel  with 
the  convention-steeped  philistine  who  refuses  to  comprehend 
even  his  point  of  view,  who  judges  the  pictures  he  sees  by  the 
pictures  he  has  seen.  He  has  not  only  discovered  a  new  way 
of  looking  at  nature,  but  he  has  justified  it  in  a  thousand  par- 
ticulars. Concentrated  as  his  attention  has  been  upon  the  ef- 
fects of  light  and  atmosphere,  he  has  reproduced  an  infinity 
of  nature's  moods  that  are  charming  in  proportion  to  their 
transitoriness,  and  whose  fleeting  beauties  he  has  caught  and 
permanently  fixed.  Rousseau  made  the  most  careful  studies, 
and  then  combined  them  in  his  studio.  Courbet  made  his 
sketch,  more  or  less  perfect,  face  to  face  with  his  subject,  and 
elaborated  it  afterward  away  from  it.  Corot  painted  his  picture 
from  nature,  but  put  the  Corot  into  it  in  his  studio.  Monet's 
practice  is  in  comparison  drastically  thorough.  After  thirty 
minutes,  he  says — why  thirty  instead  of  forty  or  twenty,  I  do 
not  know;  these  mysteries  are  Eleusinian  to  the  mere  amateur 
— the  light  changes ;  he  must  stop  and  return  the  next  day 
at  the  same  hour.  The  result  is  immensely  real,  and  in  Monet's 
hands  immensely  varied.  One  may  say  as  much,  having  regard 
to  their  differing  degrees  of  success,  of  Pissaro,  who  influenced 
him,  and  of  Caillebotte,  Renoir,  Sisley,  and  the  rest  of  the 
impressionists  who  followed  him. 

He  is  himself  the  prominent  representative  of  the  school, 

[107] 


FRENCH  ART 

however,  and  the  fact  that  one  representative  of  it  is  enough 
to  consider,  is  eloquent  of  profound  criticism  of  it.  For  deco- 
rative purposes  a  hole  in  one's  wall,  an  additional  window 
through  which  one  may  only  look  satisfactorily  during  a  period 
of  thirty  minutes,  has  its  drawbacks.  A  walk  in  the  country  or 
in  a  city  park  is  after  all  preferable  to  any  one  who  can  really 
appreciate  a  Monet — that  is,  any  one  who  can  feel  the  illusion 
of  nature  which  it  is  his  sole  aim  to  produce.  After  all,  what 
one  asks  of  art  is  something  different  from  imitative  illusion. 
Its  essence  is  illusion,  I  think,  but  illusion  taken  in  a  different 
sense  from  optical  illusion — trompe'VoeiL  Its  function  is  to 
make  dreams  seem  real,  not  to  recall  reality.  Monet  is  endur- 
ingly  admirable  mainly  to  the  painter  who  envies  and  endeav- 
ors to  imitate  his  wonderful  power  of  technical  expression — 
the  thing  that  occupies  most  the  conscious  attention  of  the 
true  painter.  To  others  he  must  remain  a  little  unsatisfactory, 
because  he  is  not  only  not  a  dreamer,  but  because  he  does 
nothing  with  his  material  except  to  show  it  as  it  is — a  great 
service  surely,  but  largely  excluding  the  exercise  of  that  archi- 
tectonic faculty,  personally  directed,  which  is  the  very  life  of 
every  truly  aesthetic  production. 


VII 


In  fme,  the  impressionist  has  his  own  conventions ;  no  school 
can  escape  them,  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  and  the 
definition  of  the  term.  The  conventions  of  the  impressionists, 
indeed,  are  particularly  salient.  Can  any  one  doubt  it  who  sees 

[108  1 


:m. .;'  ■  :',;:i,in£?SLiai>;a^s^;,» 


'i  \. 


:k}^':^^^y> •  '^.ik'-'-ii .«-  ,-=w.-^: 


o 

I 

H 

o 


however,  and  tiie  i. 
to  consider,  is  el' 
vfi  !'•     .  vposes  a 
tiiroiigii  wfiic^ 
of  tliirty  ^ir? 
in  a  city  par] 
appreciatje  H 
of  nai 
on- 
It     - 


■w 


tuve  oi  It  ■  J 

iiticism  of  it.  1  or  aeco- 
,  an  additional  window 
''    '     1y  durif'-- 

■Ail),  in  the  cuuiii:^ 
ie  who 
?i  feel  tiie  mac^iGu 


ill  a  Uinereiii 


hi: 


liV' 


ciwicii  ana  enac; 
■  expression 


e  iie.fioc. 
as  it  < 
:vrvica  surely;  but  iargciv'  cxciua-uig  tlie  . 
tectonic  faculty,  personally  directed,  whicli  is  tiie  very  iHQ  oi 
every  truly  aesthetic  production. 


z    N 


^"1 


H    n   !  i  i^t  ha^  i  1  conventions ;  no  sctKK>l 

;  them,  from  the  ver}  ^iature  of  the  ciise  and  l\n 
*     ;  convc9[itions  of  the  impression' 

nt.  Can  any  one  doubt  it  who 

[  108  ] 


c  c  c  c  c 
'  c  t  oe 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

an  exhibition  of  their  works?  In  the  same  number  of  classic, 
or  romantic,  or  merely  realistic  pictures,  is  there  anything 
quite  equalling  the  monotony  that  strikes  one  in  a  display  of 
canvases  by  Claude  Monet  and  his  fellows  and  followers?  But 
the  defect  of  impressionism  is  not  mainly  its  technical  conven- 
tionality. It  is,  as  I  think  every  one  except  its  thick-and-thin 
advocates  must  feel,  that  pursued  a  outrance  it  lacks  a  serious- 
ness commensurate  with  its  claims — that  it  exhibits  indeed  a 
kind  of  undertone  of  frivohty  that  is  all  the  nearer  to  the  ab- 
solutely comic  for  the  earnestness,  so  to  speak,  of  its  uncon- 
sciousness. The  reason  is,  partly  no  doubt,  to  be  ascribed  to 
its  debonnaire  self-satisfaction,  its  disposition  to  "lightly  run 
amuck  at  an  august  thing,"  the  traditions  of  centuries  namely, 
to  its  bumptiousness,  in  a  word.  But  chiefly,  I  think,  the  rea- 
son is  to  be  found  in  its  lack  of  anything  properly  to  be  called 
a  philosophy.  This  is  surely  a  fatal  flaw  in  any  system,  because 
it  involves  a  contradiction  in  terms ;  and  to  say  that  to  have 
no  philosophy  is  the  philosophy  of  the  impressionists,  is  merely 
a  word-juggHng  bit  of  question-begging.  A  theory  of  technic 
is  not  a  philosophy,  however  systematic  it  may  be.  It  is  a  me- 
chanical, not  an  intellectual,  point  of  view.  It  is  not  a  way  of 
looking  at  things,  but  of  rendering  them.  It  expresses  no  idea 
and  sees  no  relations;  its  claims  on  one's  interest  are  exhausted 
when  once  its  right  to  its  method  is  admitted.  The  remark 
once  made  of  a  typically  literal  person — that  he  cared  so 
much  for  facts  that  he  disliked  to  think  they  had  any  rela- 
tions— is  intimately  apphcable  to  the  whole  impressionist 
school.  Technically,  of  course,  the  impressionist's  relations  are 

[  109  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

extremely  just — not  exquisite,  but  exquisitely  just.  But  merely 
to  get  just  values  is  not  to  occupy  one's  self  with  values  ide- 
ally, emotionally,  personally.  It  is  merely  to  record  facts.  Cer- 
tainly any  impressionist  rendering  of  the  light  and  shade  and 
color  relations  of  objects  seems  eloquent  beside  any  traditional 
and  conventional  rendering  of  them;  but  it  is  because  each 
object  is  so  carefully  observed,  so  truly  painted,  that  its  rela- 
tion to  every  other  is  spontaneously  satisfactory;  and  this  is  aj 
very  different  thing  from  the  result  of  truly  pictorial  render-^ 
ing  with  its  constructive  appeal,  its  sense  of  ensemble,  its  pres- 
entation of  an  idea  by  means  of  the  convergence  and  inter- 
dependence of  objects  focussed  to  a  common  and  central  ef- 
fect. To  this  impressionism  is  absolutely  insensitive.  It  is  the  | 
acme  of  detachment,  of  indifference. 

Turg^nieff,  according  to  Mr.  George  Moore,  complained  of 
Zola's  Gervaise  Coupeau,  that  Zola  explained  how  she  felt,  | 
never  what  she  thought.  "Qu'est  que  9a  me  fait  si  elle  suait 
sous  les  bras,  ou  au  miheu  du  dos?"  he  asked,  with  most 
pertinent  penetration.  He  is  quite  right.  Really  we  only  care 
for  facts  when  they  explain  truths.  The  desultory  agglomera- 
tion of  never  so  definitely  rendered  details  necessarily  leaves 
the  civilized  appreciation  cold.  What  distinguishes  the  civi- 
lized from  the  savage  appreciation  is  the  passion  for  order.  The 
tendency  to  order,  said  Senancour,  should  form  **an  essential 
part  of  our  inclinations,  of  our  instinct,  like  the  tendencies  to 
self-preservation  and  to  reproduction."  The  two  latter  tenden- 
cies the  savage  possesses  as  completely  as  the  civiHzed  man, 
but  he  does  not  share  the  civilized  man's  instinct  for  correla- 

[110] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

tion.  And  in  this  sense,  I  think,  a  certain  savagery  is  justly  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  impressionist.  His  productions  have  many 
attractions  and  many  merits — merits  and  attractions  that  the 
traditional  painting  has  not.  But  they  are  reaUy  only  by  a 
kind  of  automatic  inadvertence,  pictures.  They  are  not  truly 
pictorial. 

And  a  picture  should  be  something  more  than  even  picto- 
rial. To  be  permanently  attaching  it  should  give  at  least  a  hint 
of  the  painter's  philosophy — his  point  of  view,  his  attitude 
toward  his  material.  In  the  great  pictures  you  can  not  only 
discover  this  attitude,  but  the  attitude  of  the  painter  toward 
life  and  the  world  in  general.  Every  one  has  as  distinct  an  idea 
of  the  philosophy  of  Raphael  as  of  the  quahties  of  his  designs. 
The  impressionist  not  only  does  not  show  you  what  he  thinks, 
he  does  not  even  show  you  how  he  feels,  except  by  betraying 
a  fondness  for  violets  and  diffused  light,  and  by  exhibiting  the 
temper  of  the  radical  and  the  rioter.  The  order  of  a  bhthe, 
idyllic  landscape  by  Corot,  of  one  of  Delacroix's  pieces  of  con- 
centric coloration,  of  an  example  of  Ingres's  purity  of  outUne, 
shows  not  only  temperament,  but  the  position  of  the  painter 
in  regard  to  the  whole  intellectual  world  so  far  as  he  touches 
it  at  all.  What  does  a  canvas  of  Claude  Monet  show  in  this 
respect?  It  is  more  truthful  but  not  less  impersonal  than  a 
photograph. 

Degas  is  the  only  other  painter  usually  classed  with  the 
impressionists,  of  whom  this  may  not  be  said.  But  Degas  is 
hardly  an  impressionist  at  all.  He  is  one  of  the  most  personal 
painters,  if  not  the  most  personal  painter,  of  the  day.  He  is 

[111] 


FRENCH  ART 

as  original  as  Puvis  de  Chavannes.  What  allies  him  with  the 
impressionists  is  his  fondness  for  fleeting  aspects,  his  caring  for 
nothing  beyond  aspect — for  the  look  of  things  and  their  tran- 
sitory look.  He  is  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  Ingres — who,  one 
would  say,  is  the  antithesis  of  impressionism.  He  never  paints 
from  nature.  His  studies  are  made  with  the  utmost  care,  but 
they  are  arranged,  composed,  combined  by  his  own  sense  of 
what  is  pictorial — by,  at  any  rate,  his  own  idea  of  the  effects  . 
he  wishes  to  create.  He  cares  absolutely  nothing  for  what 
ordinarily  we  understand  by  the  real,  the  actual,  so  far  as  its 
reality  is  concerned ;  he  sees  nothing  else,  to  be  sure,  and  is 
probably  very  sceptical  about  anything  but  colors  and  shapes 
and  their  decorative  arrangement ;  but  he  sees  what  he  likes  in 
reality  and  follows  this  out  with  an  inerrancy  so  scrupulous, 
and  even  affectionate,  as  to  convey  the  idea  that  in  his  result 
he  himself  counts  for  almost  nothing.  This  at  least  may  be 
said  of  him,  that  he  shows  what,  given  genius,  can  be  got 
out  of  the  impressionist  method  artistically  and  practically 
employed  to  the  end  of  illustrating  a  personal  point  of  view. 
A  mere  amateur  can  hardly  distinguish  between  a  Caillebotte 
and  a  Sisley,  for  example,  but  every  one  identifies  a  Degas  as 
immediately  and  as  certainly  as  he  does  a  Whistler.  His  work 
is  perfectly  sincere  and  admirably  intelhgent.  It  has  neither 
the  pose  nor  the  irresponsibility  of  the  impressionists.  His 
artistic  apotheosis  of  the  baUet-girl  is  merely  the  result  of  his 
happy  discovery  of  something  delightfully,  and  in  a  very  true; 
sense  naturally,  decorative  in  material  that  is  in  the  highest 
degree  artificial.  His  impulse  is  as  genuine  and  spontaneous  as 

[  112  ] 


-&>>«»&*(*.  ..  «sKv*-!.-,.-.«®atet«y 


•     •••••     •• 

••      •      ♦    •       • 


DEGAS 
BALLET 


ma^ 


T>, 


impressioii*     '    >   i^^ 
nothing  beyond  aspe 
sitory  look.  He  h  * 
would  say,  is  tht 
from  nature.  Hi 
they  are  arra'^*'' 
what  is  pi '*" 
he  wishes  v  ^  v 
ordinarily  we  '^ 
reahtv  is  ^ 


FRENCH  ART 

hat  alhes  him  with 
>^  aspects,  his  earing 
aings  and  their  ti 
of  Ingres — who, 
sm.  He  never  pai 
^^»e  utmost  care,  ) 
...L.^  ^^   Ms  own  sense 
l»i    .  »w|i  idea  of  the  eiFe 
^    nothing  for 
rual,  so  iki    . 
^  l>e  sure,  an 
.  .^rs  and  shi 
what  he  like 
>o  scrupuli 
t.«i,t  in  his  re> 
'^^   least  may 


\*i>lt,|{|.,'3      i«75       lil.tiXi-OL-     iJX^k. 


i  ifim,  th?^'  ^^  hows  what,  5,.. ci.  ^.^lixt^s,  can  be  < 
out  of  the  impii  Moifist  method  artistically  and  practictt. 
employed  to  the  end  of  illustrating  a  personal  point  of  vw 
A  mere  amateur  can  hardly  distinguish  between  a  Cailleboti 
and  a  Sisley,  for  example,  but  every  one  identifies  a  Degas 
immediately  and  as  certainly  as  he  does  a  Whistler.  His  woi 
is  perfectly  sinc^*e  ajid  ad  '^  ^^  '  -  -^ligent.  It  has  neit! 
the  pose  nor  the  irrespoi  ^  impressionists, 

artistic  apotheosis  of  the  Ihi  iti-^ui   -  uierely  the  result  of 
!i  ippy  discovery  of  something  delightfully,  and  in  a  ver>^ 
sense  iiAturally,  decorative  in  material  that  is  in  the  ^'^  ^^ ' 
'  grei  i#3idri.  His  impulse  is  as  genuine  and  spontaiiv 


■I'M    I    I  /  JI 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

if  the  substance  upon  which  it  is  exercised  were  not  the 
acme  of  the  exotic,  and  already  arranged  with  the  most 
elaborate  conventionality.  Nothing  indeed  could  be  more  op- 
posed to  the  elementary  crudity  of  impressionism  than  his 
distinction  and  refinement,  which  may  be  said  to  be  carried 
to  a  TeaWy  Jin  de  siecle  degree. 


VIII 


Whatever  the  painting  of  the  future  is  to  be,  it  is  certain  not 
to  be  the  painting  of  Monet.  For  the  present,  no  doubt,  Monet 
is  the  last  word  in  painting.  To  beUttle  him  is  not  only  whim- 
sical, but  ridiculous.  He  has  plainly  worked  a  revolution  in  his 
art.  He  has  taken  it  out  of  the  vicious  circle  of  conformity  to, 
departure  from,  and  return  to  abstractions  and  the  so-called 
ideal.  No  one  hereafter  who  attempts  the  representation  of 
nature — and  for  as  far  ahead  as  we  can  see  with  any  confi- 
dence, the  representation  of  nature,  the  pantheistic  ideal  if  one 
chooses,  wiU  increasingly  intrench  itself  as  the  painter's  true 
aim — no  one  who  seriously  attempts  to  realize  this  aim  of  now 
universal  appeal  will  be  able  to  dispense  with  Monet's  aid.  He 
must  perforce  follow  the  lines  laid  down  for  him  by  this  aston- 
ishing naturalist.  Any  other  course  must  result  in  solecism, 
and  if  anything  future  is  certain,  it  is  certain  that  the  future 
will  be  not  only  inhospitable  to,  but  absolutely  intolerant  of, 
solecism.  Henceforth  the  basis  of  things  is  bound  to  be  solid 
and  not  superficial,  real  and  not  fantastic.  But — whether  the 
future  is  to  commit  itself  wholly  to  prose,  or  is  to  preserve  in 

[113] 


FRENCH  ART 

new  conditions  the  essence  of  the  poetry  that,  in  one  form  or 
another,  has  persisted  since  plastic  art  began — for  the  super- 
structure to  be  erected  on  the  sound  basis  of  just  values  and 
true  impressions  it  is  justifiably  easy  to  predict  a  greater  inter- 
est and  a  more  real  dignity  than  any  such  preoccupation  with 
the  basis  of  technic  as  Monet's  can  possibly  have.  And  though,  ^ 
even  as  one  says  it,  one  has  the  feeling  that  the  future  is  preg- 
nant with  some  genius  who  will  out-Monet  Monet,  and  that  \ 
painting  will  in  some  now  inconceivable  way  have  to  submit 
hereafter  to  a  still  more  rigorous  standard  than  it  does  at  pres- 
ent— I  have  heard  the  claims  of  binocular  vision  urged — at 
the  same  time  the  true  "child  of  nature"  may  console  himself 
with  the  reflection  that  accuracy  and  competence  are  but  the 
accidents,  at  most  the  necessary  phenomena,  of  what  really 
and  essentially  constitutes  fine  art  of  any  kind — namely,  the 
expression  of  a  personal  conception  of  what  is  not  only  true 
but  beautiful  as  well.  In  France  less  than  anywhere  else  is  it 
likely  that  even  such  a  powerful  force  as  modern  realism  will 
long  dominate  the  constructive,  the  architectonic  faculty,  which 
is  part  of  the  very  fibre  of  the  French  genius.  The  exposition 
and  illustration  of  a  theory  believed  in  with  a  fervency  to  be 
found  only  among  a  people  with  whom  the  intelligence  is  the 
chief  element  and  object  of  experiment  and  exercise,  are  a 
natural  concomitant  of  mental  energy  and  activity.  But  no 
theory  holds  them  long  in  bondage.  At  the  least,  it  speedily 
gives  place  to  another  formulation  of  the  mutinous  freedom 
its  very  acceptance  creates.  And  the  conformity  that  each  of 
them  in  succession  imposes  on  mediocrity  is  always  varied  and 

[  114  ] 


REALISTIC  PAINTING 

relieved  by  the  frequent  incarnations  in  masterful  personalities 
of  the  natural  national  traits — of  which,  I  think,  the  architec- 
tonic spirit  is  one  of  the  most  conspicuous.  Painting  will  again 
become  creative,  constructive,  personally  expressive.  Its  basis 
having  been  established  as  scientifically  impeccable,  its  super- 
structure will  exhibit  the  taste,  the  elegance,  the  imaginative 
freedom,  exhibited  within  the  Umits  of  a  cultivated  sense  of 
propriety,  that  are  an  integral  part  of  the  French  painter's 
patrimony. 


[115] 


IV 

CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 


FRENCH  sculpture  naturally  foUows  very  much  the 
same  course  as  French  painting.  Its  beginnings,  how- 
ever, are  Gothic,  and  the  Renaissance  emancipated  rather  than 
created  it.  Italy,  over  which  the  Gothic  wave  passed  with  less 
disturbing  effect  than  anywhere  else,  and  where  the  Pisans 
were  doing  pure  sculpture  when  everywhere  farther  north 
sculpture  was  mainly  decorative  and  rigidly  architectural,  had 
a  potent  influence.  But  the  modem  phases  of  French  sculpture 
have  a  closer  relationship  with  the  Chartres  Cathedral  than 
modem  French  painting  has  with  its  earUest  practice;  and 
Claux  Sluters,  the  Burgundian  Fleming  who  modelled  the 
wonderful  Moses  Well  and  the  tombs  of  Jean  Sans  Peur  and 
PhiHppe  le  Hardi  at  Dijon,  among  his  other  anachronistic  mas- 
terpieces, exerted  considerably  greater  influence  upon  his  suc- 
cessors than  the  Touraine  school  of  painting  and  the  Clouets 
did  upon  theirs. 

These  works  are  a  curious  compromise  between  the  Gothic 
and  the  modern  spirits.  Sluters  was  plainly  a  modem  tempera- 
ment working  with  Gothic  material  and  amid  Gothic  ideas.  In 
itself  his  sculpture  is  hardly  decorative,  as  we  apply  the  epi- 
thet to  modern  work.  It  is  just  off*  the  line  of  rigidity,  of  insist- 
ence in  every  detail  of  its  right  and  title  to  individuahty  apart 
from  every  other  sculptured  detail.  The  prophets  in  the  niches 
of  the  beautiful  Dijon  Well,  the  monks  under  the  arcades  of 

[119] 


FRENCH  ART 

the  beautiful  Burgundian  tombs,  have  little  relation  with  each 
other  as  elements  of  a  decorative  sculptural  composition.  They 
are  in  the  same  style,  that  is  all.  Each  of  them  is  in  interest 
quite  independent  of  the  other.  Compared  with  one  of  the 
Pisans'  pulpits  they  form  a  congeries  rather  than  a  composi- 
tion. Compared  with  Goujon's  "Fountain  of  the  Innocents" 
their  motive  is  not  decorative  at  all.  Isaiah,  Ezekiel,  Jeremiah 
asserts  his  individuality  in  a  way  the  more  sociable  prophets  of 
the  Sistine  Chapel  would  hesitate  to  do.  They  have  a  Uttle  the 
air  of  hermits — of  artistic  anchorites,  one  may  say. 

They  are  Gothic,  too,  not  only  in  being  thus  sculpturally 
undecorative  and  uncomposed,  but  in  being  beautifully  sub- 
ordinate to  the  architecture  which  it  is  their  unmistakable 
ancillary  function  to  decorate  in  the  most  delightful  way  im- 
aginable— in  being  in  a  word  architecturally  decorative.  The 
marriage  of  the  two  arts  is,  GothicaUy,  not  on  equal  terms.  It 
never  occurred,  of  course,  to  the  Gothic  architect  that  it 
should  be.  His  ensemble  was  always  one  of  which  the  chief, 
the  overwhelming,  one  may  almost  say  the  sole,  interest  is 
structural.  He  even  imposed  the  condition  that  the  sculpture 
which  decorated  his  structure  should  be  itself  architecturally 
structural.  One  figure  of  the  portals  of  Chartres  is  almost  as 
Uke  another  as  one  pillar  of  the  interior  is  like  its  fellows ;  for 
the  reason — eminently  satisfactory  to  the  architect — that  it 
discharges  an  identical  function. 

Emancipation  from  this  thraldom  of  the  architect  is  Sluters's 
great  distinction,  however.  He  is  modern  in  this  sense,  with- 
out going  so  far — without  going  anything  like  so  far — as  the 

[  120  ] 


CLAUX  SLUTERS 
WELL  OF  MOSES,  DIJON 


FRENCH  ART 

the  beautiful  Buigundian  tombs,^  have  little  rektion  with  ea< 
other  as  elements  of  a  decorative  sculptural  composition.  The . 
are  in  the  same  style,  that  is  all.  Each  of  them  iis  in  intere?^ 
quite  independent  of  the  other.  Compared  with  one  of  tl, 
PLsans'  pulpits  they  form  a  congeries  rather  than  a  composi 
tion.  Compared  with  Gk)ujon  s  "Fountain  of  the  Innocent 
their  motive  is  not  decorative  at  all  Imiah,  Ezekiel,  Jeremia 
asserts  his  individuality  m  *»  wn^  it«  r  .u..  v.>etable  prophets  i 
the  Sistine  Cha^^-1  wn  ^^    ^,iey  have  a  little  tb 

air  of  henni^^  ,  one  may  say. 

1n^**^  ^'*  .  .,   m  being  thus  sculj>turall 

i^i^*.^  '    ^«**  ^^    hmmg  beautifully  sul 

f^^rt^n^^t  ,,    IS  tiieir  unmistakabi 

'  'TKBt  deliglitfiil  way  iii> 

•**^ny  decorative.  The 
mi  equal  terms.  I^ 
V-     ......    ^.   jiuv    architect  that   i 

...    .    .*   .  .c  was  always  cwie  of  which  the  chie 

t  irwhelming,  one  may  almost  say  the  sole,  interest  i.^ 

iractural.  He  even  imposed  the  condition  that  the  sculptur  - 
A'hich  decorated  his  structure  should  be  itself  architectural! 
structural.  One  %ure  of  the  portals  of  Chartres  is  almost  a.^ 
like  another  as  one  pillar  of  the  interior  is  like  its  fellows;  fo* 
the  reason—eminently  satisfactory  to  the  architect — that  i 
discharges  an  identical  function. 

Emancipation  from  this  thraldom  of  the  architect  is  Slut  - 
greii  •.  •tih^tJcMi,  however.  He  is  modem  in  this  seni^,  wun 
tHit  going  .so.  Im"^- without  going  anything  like  so  fiw— as  th* 
-,  /'  ■  '  f  120  ] 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 
modem  sculptor  who  divorces  his  work  from  that  of  the  archi- 
tect with  whom  he  is  called  upon  to  combine  to  the  end  of  an 
ensemble  that  shall  be  equally  agreeable  to  the  sense  satisfied 
by  form  and  that  satisfied  by  structure.  His  figures,  subordi- 
nate as  they  are  to  the  general  architectural  purpose  and  func- 
tion of  what  they  decorate,  are  not  only  not  purely  structural 
in  their  expression,  stiff  as  they  still  are  from  the  point  of  view 
of  absolutely  free  sculpture;  they  are,  moreover,  not  merely 
unrelated  to  each  other  in  any  essential  sense,  such  as  that  in 
which  the  figures  of  the  Pisans  and  of  Goujon  are  related ; 
they  are  on  the  contrary  each  and  all  wonderfully  accentuated 
and  individualized.  Every  ecclesiastic  on  the  Dijon  tombs  is  a 
character  study.  Every  figure  on  the  Well  has  a  psychologic 
as  well  as  a  sculptural  interest.  Poised  between  Gothic  tra- 
dition and  modem  feehng,  between  a  reverend  and  august 
sesthetic  conventionaUty  and  the  dawn  of  free  activity,  Sluters 
is  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  stimulating  figures  in  the 
whole  history  of  sculpture.  And  the  force  of  his  characteri- 
zations, the  vividness  of  his  conceptions,  and  the  combined 
power  and  delicacy  of  his  modelling  give  him  the  added 
importance  of  one  of  the  heroes  of  his  art  in  any  time  or 
country.  There  is  something  extremely  Flemish  in  his  sense  of 
personality.  A  similar  interest  in  humanity  as  such,  in  the  in- 
dividual apart  from  the  type,  is  noticeable  in  the  pictures  of 
the  Van  Eycks,  of  Memling,  of  Quentin  Matsys,  and  Roger 
Van  der  Weyden,  wherein  all  idea  of  beauty,  of  composition, 
of  universal  appeal  is  subordinated  as  it  is  in  no  other  art — in 
that  of  Holland  no  more  than  in  that  of  Italy — to  the  repre- 

[121] 


FRENCH  ART 

sentation  in  the  most  definite,  precise,  and  powerful  way  of 
some  intensely  human  personality.  There  is  the  same  extraor- 
dinary concreteness  in  one  of  Matsys's  apostles  and  one  of 
Sluters's  prophets. 

Michel  Colombe,  the  pupil  of  Claux  and  Anthoniet  and  the 
sculptor  of  the  monument  of  Fran9ois  II.,  Duke  of  Brittany, 
at  Nantes,  the  rehef  of  "St.  George  and  the  Dragon"  for  the 
Chateau  of  GaiUon,  now  in  the  Louvre,  and  the  Fontaine  de 
Beaune,  at  Tours,  and  Jean  Juste,  whose  noble  masterpiece, 
the  Tomb  of  Louis  XII.  and  Anne  of  Brittany,  is  the  finest 
ornament  of  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Denis,  bridge  the  distance 
and  mark  the  transition  to  Goujon,  Cousin,  and  Germain  Pilon 
far  more  suavely  than  the  school  of  Fontainebleau  did  the 
change  from  that  of  Tours  to  Poussin.  Cousin,  though  the 
monument  of  Admiral  Chabot  is  a  truly  marvellous  work, 
witnessing  a  practical  sculptor's  hand,  is  really  to  be  classed 
among  painters.  And  Germain  Pilon  s  compromise  with  Italian 
decorativeness,  graceful  and  fertile  sculptor  as  his  many  works 
show  him  to  have  been,  resulted  in  a  lack  of  personal  force 
that  has  caused  him  to  be  thought  on  the  one  hand  "seriously 
injured  by  the  bastard  sentiment  proper  to  the  school  of  Fon- 
tainebleau," as  Mrs.  Pattison  somewhat  sternly  remarks,  and 
on  the  other  to  be  reprehended  by  Germain  Brice  in  1718,  for 
evincing  quelque  reste  du  goAt  gothique — some  reminiscence 
of  Gothic  taste.  Jean  Goujon  is  really  the  first  modern  French 
sculptor. 


[  122  ] 


m 


GOUJON 
RELIEFS  FROM  THE  FOUNTAIN  OF  THE  INNOCENTS 


FRENCH  AR'^ 

:5c  is  the  same  extraca^ 
apostles  and  onr  -* 

il  of  Claux  and  AntHoniet  and  U^ 
e  liiumimeiii  of  Francois  IL,  Duke  of  Brittail|| 
me  relidT    ^'    ' '   George 'and  the  Dragon"  for  t^ 
"'alllon,  t  the  Louvre,  and  the  Fontaine  ^^* 

1  Juste,  whose  noble  masterpie^^j 
nd  Anne  of  Brittany,  is  the  ^ — * 
of  St  Denis,  bridge  the  dihu 
(ioujon,  Cousin,  and  (  *^  ^ 

uie  school  of  Fontainebitau   uiu  ti^ 
rs  to  Poussin.  Cousin,  though  ii§ 
cnabot  is  a  truly  marvellous    -  ^  ^ 

Iptor's  hand,  is  really  to  be 
niiain  Pilon*s  compromise  with 
1  fertile  sculptor  as  his  many 
■suited  in  a  lack  of  person, 
bought  on  the  one  hand  **seno| 
iment  proper  to  the  school  < 
<>n  somewhat  sternly  remai 
to  tiCTi  '    1  by  Gemiain  Brice  in  17  le 

/  gothique — some  remin 

^illy  the  fh^  modem  jb  i^||Mil 


L    ^' 


n 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 


II 


He  remains,  too,  one  of  the  very  finest,  even  in  a  competition 
constantly  growing  more  exacting  since  his  day.  He  had  a 
very  particular  talent,  and  it  was  exhibited  in  manifold  ways. 
He  is  as  fine  in  reUef  as  in  the  round.  His  decorative  quality 
is  as  eminent  as  his  purely  sculptural  side.  Compared  with  his 
Italian  contemporaries  he  is  at  once  full  of  feeling  and  severe. 
He  has  nothing  of  Pilon's  chameleon-like  imitativeness.  He 
does  not,  on  the  other  hand,  break  with  the  traditions  of  the 
best  models  known  to  him — and  undoubtedly  he  knew  the 
best.  His  works  cover  and  line  the  Louvre,  and  any  one  who 
visits  Paris  may  get  a  perfect  conception  of  his  genius — cer- 
tainly any  one  who  in  addition  visits  Rouen  and  beholds  the 
lovely  tracery  of  his  earliest  sculpture  on  the  portal  of  St. 
Maclou.  He  was  eminently  the  sculptor  of  an  educated  class, 
and  appealed  to  a  cultivated  appreciation.  Coming  as  he  did 
at  the  acme  of  the  French  Renaissance,  when  France  was  bor- 
rowing with  intelligent  selection  whatever  it  considered  valu- 
able from  Italy,  he  pleased  the  dilettanti.  There  is  something 
distinctly  "swell"  in  his  work.  He  does  not  perhaps  express 
any  overmastering  personal  feehng,  nor  does  he  stamp  the  im- 
press of  French  national  character  on  his  work  with  any  par- 
ticular emphasis.  He  is  too  well-bred  and  too  cultivated,  he 
has  too  much  aplomb.  But  his  works  show  both  more  personal 
feehng  and  more  national  character  than  the  works  of  his  con- 
temporaries elsewhere.  For  Hne  he  has  a  very  intimate  instinct, 

[  123  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

and  of  mass,  in  the  sculptor's  as  well  as  the  pamter  s  sense, 
he  has  a  native  comprehension.  Compare  his  "Diana"  of  the 
Louvre  with  Cellini's  in  the  adjoining  room  from  the  point 
of  view  of  pure  sculpture.  Goujon's  group  is  superb  in  every 
way.  Cellini's  figure  is  tormented  and  distorted  by  an  impulse 
of  decadent  though  decorative  aestheticism.  Goujon's  caryatides 
and  figures  of  the  Innocents  Fountain  are  equally  sculptural 
in  their  way — by  no  means  arabesques,  as  is  so  much  of  Re- 
naissance relief,  and  the  modem  relief  that  imitates  it.  Every- 
thing in  fine  that  Goujon  did  is  unified  with  the  rest  of  his 
work  and  identifiable  by  the  mark  of  style. 

Ill 

What  do  we  mean  by  style  ?  Something,  at  all  events,  very 
different  fi-om  manner,  in  spite  of  Mr.  Hamerton's  insistence 
upon  the  contrary.  Is  the  quality  in  virtue  of  which — as  Mr. 
Dobson  paraphrases  Gautier — 

"7%^  bust  outlives  the  throne. 
The  coin  Tiberiu^^ 

the  specific  personality  of  the  artist  who  carved  the  bust  or 
chiselled  the  coin  that  have  thus  outlived  all  personality  con- 
nected with  them?  Not  that  personality  is  not  of  the  essence 
of  enduring  art.  It  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  condition  of  any 
vital  art  whatever.  But  what  gives  the  object,  once  personally 
conceived  and  expressed,  its  currency,  its  universality,  its  eter- 
nal interest — speaking  to  strangers  with  familiar  vividness,  and 
to  posterity  as  to  contemporaries — is  something  aside  from  its 

[  124  ] 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 

personal  feeling.  And  it  is  this  something  and  not  specific  per- 
sonahty  that  style  is.  Style  is  the  invisible  wind  through  whose 
influence  "the  lion  on  the  flag"  of  the  Persian  poet  "moves 
and  marches."  The  lion  of  personaHty  may  be  painted  never 
so  deftly,  with  never  so  much  expression,  individual  feeling, 
picturesqueness,  energy,  charm;  it  will  not  move  and  march 
save  through  the  rhythmic,  waving  influence  of  style. 

Nor  is  style  necessarily  the  grand  style,  as  Arnold  seems  to 
imply,  in  calling  it  "a  peculiar  recasting  and  heightening, 
under  a  certain  condition  of  spiritual  excitement,  of  what  a 
man  has  to  say  in  such  a  manner  as  to  add  dignity  and  dis- 
tinction to  it."  Perhaps  the  most  exphcit  examples  of  pure 
style  owe  their  production  to  spiritual  coolness;  and,  in  any 
event,  the  word  "peculiar"  in  a  definition  begs  the  question. 
BufFon  is  at  once  juster  and  more  definite  in  saying:  "Style  is 
nothing  other  than  the  order  and  movement  which  we  put 
into  our  thoughts."  It  is  singular  that  this  simple  and  lucid 
utterance  of  Buffbn  should  have  been  so  little  noticed  by 
those  who  have  written  in  EngUsh  on  style.  In  general  Eng- 
lish writers  have  apparently  misconceived,  in  very  curious 
fashion,  Buffbn's  other  remark,  "le  style  c'est  Thomme";  by 
which  aphorism  Buffbn  merely  meant  that  a  man's  individual 
manner  depends  on  his  temperament,  his  character,  and  which 
he,  of  course,  was  very  far  from  suspecting  would  ever  be 
taken  for  a  definition. 

Following  Buffbn's  idea  of  "order  and  movement,"  we  may 
say,  perhaps,  that  style  results  from  the  preservation  in  every 
part  of  some  sense  of  the  form  of  the  whole.  It  imphes  a  sense 

[  125  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

of  relations  as  well  as  of  statement.  It  is  not  mere  expression  i 
of  a  thought  in  a  manner  peculiar  to  the  artist  (in  words,  1 
color,  marble,  what  not),  but  it  is  such  expression  penetrated 
with  both  reminiscence  and  anticipation.  It  is,  indeed,  on  the 
contrary,  very  nearly  the  reverse  of  what  we  mean  by  expres-  \ 
sion,  which  is  mainly  a  matter  of  personal  energy.  Style  means  i 
correctness,  precision,  that  feeling  for  the  ensemble  on  which  ^ 
an  inharmonious  detail  jars.  Expression  results  from  a  sense 
of  the  value  of  the  detail.  If  Walt  Whitman,  for  example, 
were  what  his  admirers'  defective  sense  of  style  fancies  him,  1 
he  would  be  expressive.  If  French  academic  art  had  as  little 
expression  as  its  censors  assert,  it  would  still  illustrate  style —  I 
the  quality  which  modifies  the  native  and  apposite  form  of  the  i 
concrete  individual  thing  with  reference  to  what  has  preceded 
and  what  is  to  follow  it ;  the  quahty,  in  a  word,  whose  effort 
is  to  harmonize  the  object  with  its  environment.  When  this  en-  1 
vironment  is  heightened,  and  universal  instead  of  logical  and 
particular,  we  have  the  "grand  style";  but  we  have  the  grand 
style  generally  in  poetry,  and  to  be  sure  of  style  at  all  prose — 
such  prose  as  Goujon's,  which  in  no  wise  emulates  Michael 
Angelo's  poetry — may  justifiably  neglect  in  some  degree  the 
specific  personaUty  that  tends  to  make  it  poetic  and  individual. 


IV 


After  Goujon,  Clodion  is  the  great  name  in  French  sculpture, 
until  we  come  to  Houdon,  who  may  almost  be  assigned  to  the 
nineteenth  century.  There  were  throughout  the  eighteenth 

[  126  ] 


CLODION 
GROUP  OF  SATYRS 


FRJENCH  AET 
iis  of  statement.  It  is  not  mere  exp^e^ 
>  a  menner  peculiar  to  the  artist  (in  wc 
not),  but  it  is  such  expression  penetrat# 
and  anticipation.  It  is,  indeed,  on 
early  the  reverse  of  what  we  mean  by  exp 
mahily  a  matter  of  personal  energy.  Style  m 
precision,  that  feeling  for  the  ensemble  on  w' 
,s  detail  jars.  Expression  results  from  a  s 
the  detaiL  If  Walt  Whitman,  for  exan 
irers' defective  sense  of  style  fancies  \ 
sive.  If  French  academic  art  had 
censors  assert,  it  would  still  illustrate  stv 
jodifies  the  native  and  apposite  fon 
thing  with  reference  to  what  has  preci 
>w  it;  the  quality,  in  a  word,  whose  ei 
the  object  with  its  environment.  When  this  en 
ghtened,  and  universal  instead  of  logical 
iive  th^  *'grand  style**;  but  we  have  the  gi* 
\x  m  poetry,  and  to  be  sure  of  style  at  all  prost 
,      s,  which  in  no  wise  emulates  Mic 
mav  justifiably  neglect  in  some  degree 
tends  to  make  it  poetic  and  indivi? 


l\ 


cn-eat  name  in  French  sculp' 
ay  ahnost  be  assigns 
throus'hout   the   cicht( 


vroiao.i ) 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 

century  honorable  artists,  sculptors  of  distinction  beyond  con- 
test. But  sculpture  is  such  an  abstract  art  itself  that  the  sculp- 
ture which  partook  of  the  artificiality  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury has  less  interest  for  us,  less  that  is  concrete  and  appealing 
than  even  the  painting  of  the  epoch.  It  derived  its  canons  and 
its  practice  from  Puget — the  French  Bernini,  who  with  less 
grace  and  less  dilettante  extravagance  than  his  ItaUan  exem- 
plar had  more  force  and  solidity.  With  less  cleverness,  less 
charm — for  Bernini,  spite  of  the  disesteem  in  which  his  juxta- 
position to  Michael  Angelo  and  his  apparent  unconsciousness 
of  the  attitude  such  juxtaposition  should  have  imposed  upon 
him,  cause  him  to  be  held,  has  a  great  deal  of  charm  and  is 
extraordinarily  clever — he  is  more  sincere,  more  thorough- 
going, more  respectable.  Coysevox  is  chiefly  Puget  exagger- 
ated, and  his  pupil,  Coustou,  who  comes  down  to  nearly  the 
middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  contributed  nothing  to 
French  sculptural  tradition. 

But  Clodion  is  a  distinct  break.  He  is  as  different  from 
Coysevox  and  Coustou  as  Watteau  is  from  Lebrun.  He  is 
the  essence  of  what  we  mean  by  Louis  Quinze.  His  work 
is  clever  beyond  characterization.  It  has  in  perfection  what 
sculptors  mean  by  color — that  is  to  say  a  certain  warmth  of 
feeling,  a  certain  insouciance,  a  brave  carelessness  for  sculp- 
turesque traditions,  a  free  play  of  fancy,  both  in  the  concep- 
tion and  execution  of  his  subjects.  Like  the  Louis  Quinze 
painters,  he  has  his  thoughtless,  irresponsible,  involuntary 
side,  and  like  them — like  the  best  of  them,  that  is  to  say,  like 
Watteau — he  is  never  quite  as  good  as  he  could  be.  He  seems 

[  127  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

not  so  much  concerned  at  expressing  his  ideal  as  at  pleasing, 
and  pleasing  people  of  too  frivolous  an  appreciation  to  call 
forth  what  is  best  in  him.  He  devoted  himself  almost  alto- 
gether to  terra-cotta,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  the 
exquisite  and  not  the  impressive  was  his  aim.  Thoroughly 
classic,  so  far  as  the  avoidance  of  everything  naturalistic  is 
concerned,  he  is  yet  as  Httle  severe  and  correct  as  the  painters 
of  his  day.  He  spent  nine  years  in  Rome,  but  though  enam- 
oured in  the  most  sympathetic  degree  of  the  antique,  it  was 
the  statuettes  and  figurines,  the  gay  and  social,  the  elegant 
and  decorative  side  of  antique  sculpture  that  exclusively  he 
deUghted  in.  His  work  is  Tanagra  Gallicized.  It  is  not  the 
group  of  "The  Deluge,"  or  the  "Entry  of  the  French  into 
Munich,"  or  "Hercules  in  Repose,"  for  which  he  was  esteemed 
by  contemporaries  or  is  prized  by  posterity.  He  is  admirable 
where  he  is  inimitable — that  is  to  say,  in  the  delightful  deco- 
ration of  which  he  was  so  prodigal.  It  is  not  in  his  composi- 
tions essaying  what  is  usually  meant  by  sculptural  effect,  but 
in  his  vases,  clocks,  pendants,  volutes,  httle  reUefs  of  nymphs 
riding  dolphins  over  favoring  breakers  and  amid  hospitable 
foam,  his  toilettes  of  Venus,  his  facade  ornamentations,  his 
apphed  sculpture,  in  a  word,  that  his  true  talent  Ues.  After 
him  it  is  natural  that  we  should  have  a  reversion  to  quasi- 
severity  and  imitation  of  the  antique — ^just  as  David  succeeded 
to  the  Louis  Quinze  pictorial  riot — and  that  the  French  con- 
temporaries of  Canova  and  Thorwaldsen,  those  literal,  though 
enthusiastic  illustrators  of  Winckelmann's  theories,  should  be 
Pradier  and  Etex  and  the  so-called  Greek  school.  Pradier's 

[  128  ] 


HOUDON 
VOLTAIRE 


FRENCH  ART 

,..  ...,  „.«..*     Jiicemed  at  expra^ing  his  ideal  as  at  pleasing 
aiid  pleasing  people  of  too  firiyolous  an  appreciation  to  cal 
forth  what  is  best  in  him.  He  devoted  himself  almost  altc 
gethcr  to  terra-cotta,  which  is  equivalent  to  saying  that  th^ 
exquisite  and  not  the  impressive  was  his  aim.  Thorough!} 
classic^  so  far  as  the  avoidance  of  everything  naturalistic  i , 
concerned,  he  is  yet  as  little  severe  and  correct  as  the  painter^ 
of  bis  day.  He  spent  nine  years  in  Rome,  but  though  enam 
ouied  m  the  inost  sympathetic  degree  of  the  antique,  it  wa>^ 
the  statuettes  and  figurines,  the  gay  and  social,  the  elegan 
.A  *l*-.'«^>rative  side  of  antique  sculp* ''»«^  ^hat  exclusively  he 
r     ^^'^^  work  is  Tanagra  <,...,.  .zed.  It  is  not  th^ 
v.v:  iJcluge,*^  or  the  "Entry  of  tlie  French*  into 
xM.*.«v ..,    . .  "Hercute  in  Rqnjse,''  fo*-  ^y^'^ph  he  was  esteeme*^ 
by  contemporaries  <Mr  is  priced  by  |>  .  He  is  admirab) 

^v hare  be  is  inimitable     ^^^^  **^  ^^  -  ihe  delightful  decc 

ration  dt  which  he  was  ^^  |^ix^*.gc.i.  x^  iS  not  in  his  compos* 
tions  essaying  what  m  i^stially  meant  by  sculptural  effect,  bu 
in  his  vases,  clocks,  pendants,  %  olutes,  little  reUefs  of  nyrnph 
riding  dolphins  over  &v<mng  breakers  and  amid  hospit-^^'^ 
foam,  his  toilettes  ^^^  "^"^nus,  his  facade  ornamentations,  .. 
'ppUed  sculpture,  u^  V,  that  his  true  talent  lies.  Afte 

iiun  it  is  natund  ttail  ^>r    saould  have  a  reversion  to  quasi 
sevOTtyand  imitation  ^  the  antique — ^justas  David  succeedt 
to  the  Lfouis  Qv^-    --'*'>iial  riot — and  that  the  French  con- 
temporaries of  ijid  Thorwaldsen,  those  literal,  though 
enthusiastic  iUu^ti  f  Winckelmann's  tlieories,  should  b 
Pradier  and  !^tex  air  -o-called  Greek  school.  Pradier 


VlCKl^IOH 
liHIATIOV 


«  C         C       •  t     c      « 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 

Greek  inspiration  has  something  Swiss  about  it,  one  may- 
say — he  was  a  Genevan — though  his  figures  were  simple 
and  largely  treated.  He  had  a  keen  sense  for  the  feminine 
element — the  ewig  Wdbliche — and  expressed  it  plastically 
with  a  zest  approaching  gusto.  Yet  his  statues  are  women 
rather  than  statues,  and,  more  than  that,  are  handsome  rather 
than  beautiful.  Etex,  it  is  to  be  feared,  will  be  chiefly  remem- 
bered as  the  unfortunately  successful  rival  of  Rude  in  the 
Arc  de  Triomphe  de  I'Etoile  decoration. 


Having  in  each  case  more  or  less  relation  with,  but  really 
wholly  outside  of  and  superior  to  all  "schools'*  whatever — ex- 
cept the  school  of  nature,  which  permits  as  much  freedom  as 
it  exacts  fidelity — is  the  succession  of  the  greatest  of  French 
sculptors  since  the  Renaissance  and  down  to  the  present  day: 
Houdon,  David  d'Angers,  Rude,  Carpeaux,  and  Barye.  Hou- 
don  is  one  of  the  finest  examples  of  the  union  of  vigor  with 
grace.  He  will  be  known  chiefly  as  a  portraitist,  but  such  a 
masterpiece  as  his  "Diana"  shows  how  admirable  he  was  in 
the  sphere  of  purely  imaginative  theme  and  treatment.  Classic, 
and  even  conventionally  classic  as  it  is,  both  in  subject  and  in 
the  way  the  subject  is  handled — compared  for  example  with 
M.  Falgui^re's  "Nymph  Hunting,"  which  is  simply  a  realistic 
Diana — it  is  designed  and  modelled  with  as  much  personal 
fi-eedom  and  feeling  as  if  Houdon  had  been  stimulated  by  the 
ambition  of  novel  accompUshment,  instead  of  that  of  render- 

[  129  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

ing  with  truth  and  grace  a  time-honored  and  traditional  sculp- 
tural motive.  Its  treatment  is  beautifully  educated  and  its  ef- 
fect refined,  chaste,  and  elevated  in  an  extraordinary  degree. 
No  master  ever  steered  so  near  the  reef  of  "clock- tops,"  one 
may  say,  and  avoided  it  so  surely  and  triumphantly.  The  figure 
is  light  as  air  and  wholly  effortless  at  the  same  time.  There  has 
rarely  been  such  a  distinguished  success  in  circumventing  the 
great  difficulty  of  sculpture — which  is  to  rob  marble  or  metal 
of  its  specific  gravity  and  make  it  appear  fight  and  buoyant, 
just  as  the  difficulty  of  the  painter  is  to  give  weight  and  sub- 
stance to  his  fictions.  But  Houdon  s  admirable  busts  of  Mo- 
li^re,  Diderot,  Washington,  Frankhn,  and  Mirabeau,  his  un- 
equalled statue  of  Voltaire  in  the  foyer  of  the  Fran^ais  and 
his  San  Bruno  in  Santa  Maria  degU  AngeH  at  Rome  are  the 
works  on  which  his  fame  will  chiefly  rest,  and,  owing  to  their 
masterly  combination  of  strength  with  style,  rest  securely. 

To  see  the  work  of  David  d'Angers,  one  must  go  to  Angers 
itself  and  to  P^re-Lachaise.  The  Louvre  is  lamentably  lacking 
in  anything  truly  representative  of  this  most  eminent  of  all 
portraitists  in  sculpture,  I  think,  not  excepting  even  Houdon, 
if  one  may  reckon  the  mass  as  well  as  the  excellence  of  his 
remarkable  production  and  the  way  in  which  it  witnesses  that 
portraiture  is  just  what  he  was  bom  to  do.  The  "Philopoe- 
men"  of  the  Louvre  is  a  fine  work,  even  impressively  large 
and  simple.  But  it  is  the  competent  work  of  a  member  of  a 
school  and  leaves  one  a  little  cold.  Its  academic  quality  quite 
overshadows  whatever  personal  feeling  one  may  by  searching 
find  in  the  severity  of  its  treatment  and  the  way  in  which  a 

[130] 


%m 


I  wiiiiMii<><iaii(imiiiiiiil>i>«  II  irtnii-fMi-nnniiniiteimrr  ritftr"'iririr'iir  ■-^"''-' 


RUDE 


LE  CHANT  DU  DEPART  — ARC  DE  LETOILE 


FRENCH 

■lup 


*race  a  time  ^  '  iiiuiiK»iia.i  seiup- 


.tanent  h  '  uv  cuucated  and 


uiit* 


feet  rt  *     '^v»k»4  m  an  extraordinary  c 

No  m.  ju  ^u  near  the  reef  of  **  clock-tops, 

mn  it  so  surely  and  triumphantly.  The  figure 

hi  ^^v  eJFortl^sat  the  same  "^'-^      There  has 

raifiv  'shed  success  in  cirruin venting  the 

~    '  —which  is  to  rob  marble  or  metal 

i  make  it  appear  light  and  buoyant, 

he  painter  is  to  give  weight  and  sub- 

liut  Houdon's  admirable  busts  of  Mo- 

^  ^on,  Franklin,  and  Mirabeau,  his  un- 

~  in  the  Joy er  of  the  Fran<jais  and 

nana  degli  Angeli  at  Rome  are  the 

will  chiefly  I'est,  and,  owing  to  their 

strength  with  style,  rest  securely. 

avid  d' Angers,  one  must  go  to  Angers 

ise.  The  Louvre  is  lamentably  lacking 

sentative  of  this  most  eminent  of  all 

'  'hink,  not  excepting  even  Hoiidon, 

i!  s  as  well  as  the  excellence  of  his 

tri  '     way  in  which  it  witnesses  tb;  * 

lie  wBs  bom  to  do.  The  **Philopa3- 
.  :•-  ;  work,  even  impressively  large 

ajid  *iintL»ie.  j  "  nt  work  of  a  member  of  a 

school  tmd  le  Its  academic  quality  quite 

•^  '    ^  one  may  by  searching 

luiu  iV    tile  tnd  the  way  in  which  a 


M(l  Jfl 

MK.i   11     Hi     >;w         TH/M-Mr   IJCJ  TVIAH'i  AA 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 

classic  motive  has  been  followed  out  naturally  and  genuinely 
instead  of  perfunctorily.  It  gives  no  intimation  of  the  faculty 
that  produced  the  splendid  gallery  of  medallions,  accentuated 
by  an  occasional  bust  and  statue,  of  David's  celebrated  con- 
temporaries and  quasi-contemporaries  in  every  field  of  distinc- 
tion. It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the  interest  and  value, 
the  truth  and  the  art  of  these.  Whether  the  subject  be  intract- 
able or  not  seems  to  have  made  no  difference  to  David.  He 
invariably  produced  a  work  of  art  at  the  same  time  that  he 
expressed  the  character  of  its  motive  with  uncompromising 
fidehty.  His  portraits,  moreover,  are  pure  sculpture.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  cameo-cutter's  art  about  them.  They  are  mod- 
elled not  carved.  The  outline  is  no  more  important  than  it  is 
in  nature,  so  far  as  it  is  employed  to  the  end  of  identification. 
It  is  used  decoratively.  There  are  surprising  effects  of  fore- 
shortening, exhibiting  superb,  and  as  it  were  unconscious  ease 
in  handling  reUef — that  most  difficult  of  illusions  in  respect  of 
having  no  law  (at  least  no  law  that  it  is  worth  the  sculptor's 
while  to  try  to  discover)  of  correspondence  to  reality.  Forms 
and  masses  have  a  definition  and  a  firmness  wholly  remarkable 
in  their  independence  of  the  usual  low  rehef's  rehance  on  pic- 
torial and  purely  Hnear  design.  They  do  not  blend  pictu- 
resquely with  the  background,  and  do  not  depend  on  their 
suggestiveness  for  their  character.  They  are  always  realized, 
executed — sculpture  in  a  word  whose  suggestiveness,  quite  as 
potent  as  that  of  feebler  executants,  begins  only  when  actual 
representation  has  been  triumphantly  achieved  instead  of  im- 
potently  and  skilfully  avoided. 

[131] 


FRENCH  ART 

Of  Rude's  genius  one's  first  thought  is  of  its  robustness,  its 
originaUty.  Everything  he  did  is  stamped  with  the  impress  of 
his  personahty.  At  the  same  time  it  is  equally  evident  that 
Rude's  own  temperament  took  its  color  from  the  transitional 
epoch  in  which  he  Uved,  and  of  which  he  was  par  excellence 
the  sculptor.  He  was  the  true  inheritor  of  his  Rurgundian  tra- 
ditions. His  strongest  side  was  that  which  allies  him  with  his 
artistic  ancestor,  Claux  Sluters.  Rut  he  lived  in  an  era  of  gen- 
eral culture  and  sestheticism,  and  all  his  naturahstic  tenden- 
cies were  complicated  with  theory.  He  accepted  the  antique 
not  merely  as  a  stimulus,  but  as  a  model.  He  was  not  only  a 
sculptor  but  a  teacher,  and  the  formulation  of  his  didacticism 
complicated  considerably  the  free  exercise  of  his  expression. 
At  the  last,  as  is  perhaps  natural,  he  reverted  to  precedent 
and  formulary,  and  in  his  "Hebe  and  the  Eagle  of  Jupiter" 
and  his  "L'Amour  Dominateur  du  Monde,"  is  more  at  vari- 
ance than  anywhere  else  with  his  native  instinct,  which  was, 
to  cite  the  admirable  phrase  of  M.  de  Fourcaud,  eooterioriser 
nos  idees  et  nos  dmes.  Rut  throughout  his  life  he  halted  a  little 
between  two  opinions — the  current  admiration  of  the  classic, 
and  his  own  instinctive  feeling  for  nature  unsystematized  and 
unsophisticated.  His  "Jeanne  d'Arc"  is  an  instance.  In  spite 
of  the  violation  of  tradition,  which  at  the  time  it  was  thought 
to  be,  it  seems  to-day  to  our  eyes  to  err  on  the  side  of  the 
conventional.  It  is  surely  intellectual,  classic,  even  factitious  in 
conception  as  weU  as  in  execution.  In  some  of  its  accessories 
it  is  even  modish.  It  illustrates  not  merely  the  abstract  turn 
of  conceiving  a  subject  which  Rude  always  shared  with  the 

[  132  ] 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 
great  classicists  of  his  art,  but  also  the  arbitrariness  of  treat- 
ment against  which  he  always  protested.  Without  at  all  know- 
ing it,  he  was  in  a  very  intimate  sense  an  eclectic  in  many  of 
his  works.  He  believed  in  forming  a  complete  mental  concep- 
tion of  every  composition  b^ore  even  posing  a  model,  as  he 
used  to  tell  his  students,  but  in  complicated  compositions  this 
was  impossible,  and  he  had  small  talent  for  artificial  composi- 
tion. Furthermore,  he  often  distrusted — quite  without  reason, 
but  after  the  fatal  manner  of  the  rustic — his  own  intuitions. 
But  one  mentions  these  qualifications  of  his  genius  and  ac- 
comphshment  only  because  both  his  genius  and  accomphsh- 
ment  are  so  distinguished  as  to  make  one  wish  they  were  more 
nearly  perfect  than  they  are.  It  is  really  idle  to  wish  that 
Rude  had  neglected  the  philosophy  of  his  art,  with  which  he 
was  so  much  occupied,  and  had  devoted  himself  exclusively 
to  treating  sculptural  subjects  in  the  manner  of  a  nineteenth- 
century  successor  of  Sluters  and  Anthoniet.  He  might  have 
been  a  greater  sculptor  than  he  was,  but  he  is  sufficiently 
great  as  he  is.  If  his  "Mercury"  is  an  essay  in  conventional 
sculpture,  his  "Petit  Pecheur"  is  frank  and  free  sculptural 
handling  of  natural  material.  His  work  at  LiUe  and  in  Bel- 
gium, his  rechning  figure  of  Cavaignac  in  the  cemetery  of 
Montmartre,  his  noble  figures  of  Gaspard  Monge  at  Beaune, 
of  Marshal  Bertrand,  and  of  Ney,  are  all  cast  in  the  heroic 
mould,  full  of  character,  and  in  no  wise  dependent  on  specu- 
lative theory.  Few  sculptors  have  displayed  anything  like  his 
variety  and  range,  which  extends,  for  example,  fi-om  the  '*  Bap- 
tism of  Christ"  to  a  statue  of  "Louis  XIII.  enfant,"  and  in- 

[  133  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

eludes  portraits,  groups,  compositions  in  relief,  and  heroic 
statues.  In  all  his  successful  work  one  cannot  fail  to  note  the 
force  and  fire  of  the  man's  personality,  and  perhaps  what  one 
thinks  of  chiefly  in  connection  with  him  is  the  misfortune 
which  we  owe  to  the  vacillation  of  M.  Thiers  of  having  but 
one  instead  of  four  groups  by  him  on  the  piers  of  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  de  I'Etoile.  Carpeaux  used  to  say  that  he  never 
passed  the  "Chant  du  Depart"  without  taking  off  his  hat.  One 
can  understand  his  feeling.  No  one  can  have  any  appreciation 
of  what  sculpture  is  without  perceiving  that  this  magnificent 
group  easily  and  serenely  takes  its  rank  among  the  master- 
pieces of  sculpture  of  all  time.  It  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  in- 
carnation of  an  abstraction,  the  spirit  of  patriotism  roused  to 
the  highest  pitch  of  warlike  intensity  and  self-sacrifice,  and  in 
the  second  this  abstract  motive  is  expressed  in  the  most  elab- 
orate and  comprehensive  completeness — with  a  combined  in- 
tricacy of  detail  and  singleness  of  effect  which  must  be  the 
despair  of  any  but  a  master  in  sculpture. 


VI 

Carpeaux  perhaps  never  did  anything  that  quite  equals  the  ^ 
masterpiece  of  his  master  Rude.  But  the  essential  quality  of  j 
the  "Chant  du  Depart"  he  assimilated  so  absolutely  and  so  ■ 
naturally  that  he  made  it  in  a  way  his  own.  He  carried  it  far- 
ther, indeed.  If  he  never  rose  to  the  grandeur  of  this  superb  1 
group,  and  he  certainly  did  not,  he  nevertheless  showed  in 
every  one  of  his  works  that  he  was  possessed  by  its  inspiration 

[  134  ] 


CARPEAUX 
LA  DANSE — NOUVEL  OPERA 


c 


FRENCH  ART 

.   :   .   T>  i  traits,  gr<>!JT>s.   eompositians  in  relief,  and   here 

hh  s  ;  work        j     iimot  fkil  to  note  the 

:..    -a       ^  dlity,  and  perhaps  what  one 

y  m  romieet ion  with  him  is  the  misfortiu. . 

to  t-  _      ion  of  M.  Thiers  of  having  but 

ps  by  him  on  the  piers  of  the  Arc  f^^ 

,.  Carpeaux  used  to  say  that  he  neu, 

^,_..„  .  ..at  du  Dispart"  without  taking  off  his  hat.  One 

can  n  )d  his  feeling.  No  one  can  have  any  appreciation 

ti irp  h  witliout  perceiving  that  tMs  magnificent 

Laenely  takes  its  rank  among  the  master- 

re  of  all  time.  It  is,  in  the  first  place,  the  in- 

tbstraction,  the  spirit  of  patriotism  roused  to 

of  warlike  intensity  and  self-sacrifice,  and  in 

bstract  motive  is  f^ynn-^^ed  in  the  most  elab- 

iHiiiiTve  complete. __,     with  a  combined  in- 

igleness  of  effect  which  must  be  the 

taster  in  sculpture. 


VI 


'^  «^^^  id  anything  that  quite  equals  the 

r.w4..   j^^i  i]^^  essential  quality  of 

tt.^A.iiilated  so  absolutely  and  so 

i.fv*.  ,,v  ..*c».^..  ^'"v  his  own.  He  carried  it  far- 

,.^t.cd.  If  he  r-"*  he  grandeur  of  this  superb 

j^  }y^  /v.o4  ]^Q  nevertheless  showed  in 


%m^  ^ ' ^  »^ '  '^  ^  f'' "--  ^' "'^  ^^^ ^  '^''  i "  ^  ni  ration 


Afl.no  Kiyiiovi     Hiiviha  aj 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 
even  more  completely  than  was  Rude  himself.  His  passion 
was  the  representation  of  life,  the  vital  and  vivifying  force  in 
its  utmost  exuberance,  and  in  its  every  variety,  so  far  as  his 
experience  could  enable  him  to  render  it.  He  was  infatuated 
with  movement,  with  the  attestation  in  form  of  nervous 
energy,  of  the  quick  translation  of  thought  and  emotion  into 
interpreting  attitude.  His  figures  are,  beyond  aU  others,  so 
thoroughly  aUve  as  to  seem  conscious  of  the  fact  and  joy  of 
pure  existence.  They  are  animated,  one  may  almost  say  in- 
spired, with  the  deUght  of  muscular  activity,  the  sensation  of 
exercising  the  functions  with  which  nature  endows  them.  And 
accompanying  this  supreme  motive  and  effect  is  a  delightful 
grace  and  winningness  of  which  few  sculptors  have  the  secret, 
and  which  suggest  more  than  any  one  else  Clodion's  decorative 
loveliness.  An  even  greater  charm  of  sprite-hke,  fairy  attrac- 
tiveness, of  caressing  and  bewitching  fascination,  a  more  pene- 
trating and  seductive  engagingness  plays  about  Carpeaux's 
"Flora,"  I  think,  than  is  characteristic  even  of  Clodion's  fig- 
ures and  reliefs.  Carpeaux  is  at  all  events  nearer  to  us,  and  if 
he  has  not  the  classic  detachment  of  Clodion  he  substitutes  for 
it  a  quality  of  closer  attachment  and  more  intimate  appeal.  He 
is  at  his  best  perhaps  in  the  "Danse"  of  the  Nouvel  Op^ra 
facade,  wherein  his  elfin-like  grace  and  exuberant  vitaHty  ani- 
mate a  group  carefully,  and  even  classically  composed,  exhibit- 
ing skill  and  restraint  as  well  as  movement  and  fancy.  Possibly 
his  temperament  gives  itself  too  free  a  rein  in  the  group  of 
the  Luxembourg  Gardens,  in  which  he  has  been  accused  by 
his  own  admirers  of  sacrificing  taste  to  turbulence  and  secur- 

[  135  1 


FRENCH  ART 

ing  expressiveness  at  the  expense  of  saner  and  more  truly 
sculptural  aims.  But  fancy  the  Luxembourg  Gardens  without 
"The  Four  Quarters  of  the  World  supporting  the  Earth." 
Parisian  censure  of  his  exuberance  is  very  apt  to  display  a 
conventional  standard  of  criticism  in  the  critic  rather  than  to 
substantiate  its  charge. 

Barye's  place  in  the  history  of  art  is  more  nearly  unique, 
perhaps,  than  that  of  any  of  the  great  artists.  He  was  certainly 
one  of  the  greatest  of  sculptors,  and  he  had  either  the  good 
luck  or  the  mischance  to  do  his  work  in  a  field  almost  wholly 
unexploited  before  him.  He  has  in  his  way  no  rivals,  and  in 
his  way  he  is  so  admirable  that  the  scope  of  his  work  does  not 
even  hint  at  his  exclusion  from  rivalry  with  the  very  greatest 
of  his  predecessors.  A  perception  of  the  truth  of  this  apparent 
paradox  is  the  nearest  one  may  come,  I  think,  to  the  secret  of 
his  excellence.  No  matter  what  you  do,  if  you  do  it  well 
enough,  that  is,  with  enough  elevation,  enough  spiritual  dis- 
tinction, enough  transmutation  of  the  elementary  necessity  of 
technical  perfection  into  true  significance — you  succeed.  And 
this  is  not  the  sense  in  which  motive  in  art  is  currently  beht- 
tled.  It  is  rather  the  suggestion  of  Mrs.  Browning's  lines  : 

"Betterfar 

Tursue  ajrivolous  trade  by  serious  means 

Than  a  sublime  art  frivolously  P 

Nothing  could  be  more  misleading  than  to  fancy  Barye  a 
kind  of  modern  Cellini.  Less  than  any  sculptor  of  modern 
times  is  he  a  decorative  artist.  The  small  scale  of  his  works  is 
in  great  part  due  to  his  lack  of  opportunity  to  produce  larger 

[  136  ] 


;.0m..^^'^^^^ 


BARYE 
LION  —  COURT  OF  THE  LOUVRE 


.  .;      vpressivene 
^  >j|pturai  aims. 
I  he  Four  O  ' 
Parisian  ceiis.. 
con^xmtior-      '^  - 
substaiitih  . 

Bar\x>  place  i 

-pvrhf^in,  than  tha 

«#iv   ot  the  great< 

hu  k  or  the  misc: 

■-.r  :' loitt^d  befb 

he  is 


otiner  and  more  truly 

^^'"iirg  Gardens  without 

.v., t.»    3i.ppoi1:mg  the  F-^^ 

*^'^*e  is  very  apt  to  dis|i.i«j    « 

n  the  critic  rather  than  to 

ttj^;  history  "^^  '"^^-  is  raore  nearlv   uui^ucj 

.4-  .,.^y  of  the  i^^cii^  .-:-  f..  He  was  certainly 

'^ntors,  and  either  the  good 

-  ^>'-  --"-^  :-^  almost  wholly 


1  ,-,.,.3     :_.,. 


lUfctiier   wi; 


lit:  very  g^     '    " 
'-^^■^-"sappareiiL 

jou  do  iii   v^t^ii 


1j< 


'      loiigh  <  iough  spiritiml  dis- 

s  cnougii  uaiisinutation  ui  ir.e  elementary  necessity  of 

lil  perft    '        hi  to  tru  fieance^—you  succeed.  And 

;iot  the  sease  in  whieii  aiocive  in  art  is  currently  beht- 

i  r  is  rather  ^tm  suggestion  of  Mrs.  Browning  s  Unes : 


-  n 


■'ijnvoious  trade  %  seriom  mcmis 

i^wi  aisieading  than  to  tancy  Barye  a 

kin4  M  mooera  vtiiini.  i.ess  than  any  sculptor  of  modern 
times  k  he  ft  dticorati'^'e  artist  The  small  scale  of  his  works  is 
^^'  gr^t  part  due  to  his  lack  of  opportunity  to  produceiarger 


A  CiiiM 
ni 7  J(U  aHT  HO  TH'IO  >        YAHA 


CLASSIC  SCULPTURE 
ones.  Nowadays  one  does  what  one  can,  even  the  greatest 
artists ;  and  Barye  had  no  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  for  a  patron, 
but,  instead,  a  frowning  Institute,  which  confined  him  to  such 
work  as,  in  the  main,  he  did.  He  did  it  con  amove,  it  need  not 
be  added,  and  thus  lifted  it  at  once  out  of  the  customary  cate- 
gory of  such  work.  His  bronzes  were  never  articles  de  Paris, 
and  their  excellence  transcends  the  function  of  teaching  our 
sculptors  and  amateurs  the  lesson  that  "household"  is  as  dig- 
nified a  province  as  monumental,  art.  His  groups  are  not 
essentially  "clock-tops,"  and  the  work  of  perhaps  the  greatest 
artist,  in  the  line  from  Jean  Goujon  to  Carpeaux,  can  hardly 
be  used  to  point  the  moral  that  "clock-tops"  ought  to  be  good. 
Cellini's  "Perseus"  is  really  more  of  a  "parlor  ornament"  than 
Barye's  smallest  figure. 

Why  is  he  so  obviously  great  as  well  as  so  obviously  extraor- 
dinary? one  constantly  asks  himself  in  the  presence  of  his 
bronzes.  Perhaps  because  he  expresses  with  such  concreteness, 
such  definiteness  and  vigor  a  motive  so  purely  an  abstraction. 
The  illustration  in  intimate  elaboration  of  elemental  force, 
strength,  passion,  seems  to  have  been  his  aim,  and  in  every 
one  of  his  wonderfully  varied  groups  he  attains  it  superbly — 
not  giving  the  beholder  a  symbol  of  it  merely ;  in  no  degree 
depending  upon  association  or  convention,  but  exhibiting  its 
very  essence  with  a  combined  scientific  expHcitness  and  poetic 
energy  to  which  antique  art  alone,  one  may  almost  say,  has 
furnished  a  parallel.  For  this,  fauna  served  him  as  well  as  the 
human  figure,  though,  could  he  have  studied  man  with  the 
faciUty  which  the  Jardin  des  Plantes  afforded  him  of  observ- 

[137] 


FRENCH  ART 

ing  the  lower  animals,  he  might  have  used  the  medium  of  the 
human  figure  more  frequently  than  he  did.  When  he  did,  he 
was  hardly  less  successful;  and  the  four  splendid  groups  that 
decorate  the  Pavilions  Denon  and  Richelieu  of  the  Louvre  are 
in  the  very  front  rank  of  the  heroic  sculpture  of  the  modern 
world. 


[  138  ] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 
I 

FROM  Barye  to  the  Institute  is  a  long  way.  Nothing 
could  be  more  interhostile  than  his  sculpture  and  that  of 
the  professors  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux- Arts.  And  in  consider- 
ing the  French  sculpture  of  the  present  day  we  naay  say  that, 
aside  from  the  great  names  already  mentioned — Houdon, 
David  d' Angers,  Rude,  Carpeaux,  and  Barye — and  apart  from 
the  new  movement  represented  by  Rodin  and  Dalou,  it  is  rep- 
resented by  the  Institute,  and  that  the  Institute  has  reverted 
to  the  Itahan  inspiration.  The  influence  of  Canova  and  the 
example  of  Pradier  and  Etex  were  not  lasting.  Indeed,  Greek 
sculpture  has  perished  so  completely  that  it  sometimes  seems 
to  live  only  in  its  legend.  With  the  modem  French  school,  the 
academic  school,  it  is  quite  supplanted  by  the  sculpture  of  the 
Renaissance.  And  this  is  not  unreasonable.  The  Renaissance 
sculpture  is  modem ;  its  masters  did  finely  and  perfectly  what 
since  their  time  has  been  done  imperfectly,  but  essentially  its 
artistic  spirit  is  the  modem  artistic  spirit,  full  of  personality, 
full  of  expression,  careless  of  the  type.  Nowadays  we  patronize 
a  httle  the  ideal.  You  may  hear  very  intelligent  critics  in  Paris 
— who  in  Paris ]is  not  an  inteUigent  critic? — speak  disparag- 
ingly of  the  Greek  want  of  expression ;  of  the  lack  of  passion, 
of  vivid  interest,  of  significance  in  a  word,  in  Greek  sculpture 
of  the  Periclean  epoch.  The  conception  of  absolute  beauty 
having  been  discovered  to  be  an  abstraction,  the  tradition  of 

[141] 


FRENCH  ART 

the  purely  ideal  has  gone  with  it.  The  caryatids  of  the  Ereeh- 
theum,  the  horsemen  of  the  Parthenon  frieze,  the  reliefs  of  the 
Nike  Apteros  balustrade  are  admired  certainly;  but  they  are 
hardly  sympathetically  admired;  there  is  a  tendency  to  rele- 
gate them  to  the  Umbo  of  subjects  for  aesthetic  lectures.  And 
yet  no  one  can  have  carefully  examined  the  brilliant  produc- 
tions of  modern  French  sculpture  without  being  struck  by 
this  apparent  paradox :  that,  whereas  all  its  canons  are  drawn 
from  a  study  of  the  Renaissance,  its  chief  characteristic  is,  at 
bottom,  a  lack  of  expression,  a  carefulness  for  the  type.  The  ex- 
planation is  this :  in  the  course  of  time,  which  "at  last  makes  all 
things  even,"  the  individuaUty,  the  romanticism  of  the  Renais- 
sance has  itself  become  the  type,  is  now  itself  become  "clas- 
sical," and  the  modern  attitude  toward  it,  however  sympathetic 
compared  with  the  modern  attitude  toward  the  antique,  is  to  a 
noteworthy  degree  factitious  and  artificial.  And  in  art  every- 
thing depends  upon  the  attitude  of  mind.  It  is  this  which  pre- 
vents Ingres  from  being  truly  Raphaelesque,  and  Pradier  from 
being  really  classical.  If,  therefore,  it  can  justly  be  said  of  mod- 
em French  sculpture  that  its  sympathy  for  the  Renaissance 
sculpture  obscures  its  vision  of  the  ideal,  it  is  clearly  to  be 
charged  with  the  same  absence  of  individual  significance  with 
which  its  thick-and-thin  partisans  reproach  the  antique.  The 
circumstance  that,  like  the  Renaissance  sculpture,  it  deals  far 
more  largely  in  pictorial  expression  than  the  antique  does,  is, 
if  it  deals  in  them  after  the  Renaissance  fashion  and  not  after 
a  fashion  of  its  own,  quite  beside  the  essential  fact.  There  is 
really  nothing  in  common  between  an  academic  French  sculp- 

[  142  ] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

tor  of  the  present  day  and  an  Italian  sculptor  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  except  the  possession  of  what  is  called  the  modern 
spirit.  But  the  modern  spirit  manifests  itself  in  an  enormous 
gamut,  and  the  differences  of  its  manifestations  are  as  great 
in  their  way,  and  so  far  as  our  interest  in  them  is  concerned, 
as  the  difference  between  their  inspiration  and  the  mediaeval 
or  the  antique  inspiration. 


II 


Chapu,  who  died  a  year  or  two  ago,  is  perhaps  the  only  emi- 
nent sculptor  of  the  time  whose  inspiration  is  clearly  the 
antique,  and  when  I  add  that  his  work  appears  to  me  for  this 
reason  none  the  less  original,  it  will  be  immediately  perceived 
that  I  share  imperfectly  the  French  objection  to  the  antique. 
Indeed,  nowadays  to  have  the  antique  inspiration  is  to  be 
original  ex  vi  termini;  nothing  is  farther  removed  from  contem- 
porary conventions.  But  this  is  true  in  a  much  more  integral 
sense.  The  pre-eminent  fact  of  Greek  sculpture,  for  example, 
is,  from  one  point  of  view,  the  directness  with  which  it  con- 
cerns itself  with  the  ideal — the  slight  temporary  or  personal 
element  with  which  it  is  alloyed.  When  one  calls  an  artist  or  a 
work  Greek,  this  is  what  is  reaUy  meant ;  it  is  the  sense  in 
which  Raphael  is  Greek.  Chapu  is  Greek  in  this  way,  and  thus 
individualized  among  his  contemporaries,  not  only  by  having 
a  different  inspiration  from  them,  but  by  depending  for  his 
interest  on  no  convention  fixed  or  fleeting  and  on  no  indirect 
support  of  accentuated  personal  characteristics.  Perhaps  the 

[  143  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

antiquary  of  a  thousand  years  from  now,  to  whom  the  traits 
which  to  us  distinguish  so  clearly  the  work  of  certain  sculptors 
who  seem  to  have  nothing  in  common  will  betray  only  their 
common  inspiration,  will  be  even  less  at  a  loss  than  ourselves 
to  find  traces  of  a  common  origin  in  such  apparently  different 
works  as  Chapu's  "Mercury"  and  his  *'Jeunesse"  of  the  Reg- 
nault  monument.  He  will  by  no  means  confound  these  with 
the  classical  productions  of  M.  Millet  or  M.  Cavelier,  we  may 
be  sure.  And  this,  I  repeat,  because  their  purely  Greek  spirit, 
the  subordination  in  their  conception  and  execution  of  the 
personal  element,  the  direct  way  in  which  the  sculptor  looks 
at  the  ideal,  the  type,  not  only  distinguish  them  among  con- 
temporary works,  which  are  so  largely  personal  expressions,  but 
give  them  an  eminent  individuality  as  well.  Like  the  Greek 
sculpture,  they  are  plainly  the  production  of  culture,  which  in 
restraining  wilfulness,  however  happily  inspired,  and  impos- 
ing measure  and  poise,  nevertheless  acutely  stimulates  and 
develops  the  faculties  themselves.  The  sceptic  who  may  very 
plausibly  inquire  the  distinction  between  that  vague  entity, 
"the  ideal,"  and  the  personal  idea  of  the  artist  concerned  with 
it,  can  be  shown  this  distinction  better  than  it  can  be  expressed 
in  words.  He  will  appreciate  it  very  readily,  to  return  to 
Chapu,  by  contrasting  the  "Jeanne  d'Arc"  at  the  Luxem- 
bourg Gallery  with  such  different  treatment  of  the  same 
theme  as  M.  Bastien-Lepage's  picture,  now  in  the  New  York 
MetropoHtan  Museum,  illustrates.  Contrary  to  his  almost  in- 
variable practice  of  neglecting  even  design  in  favor  of  imper- 
sonal natural  representation,  Bastien-Lepage's  "Jeanne  d'Arc** 

[  144  ] 


CHAPU 
MERCURY  INVENTING  THE  CADUCEUS 


"  •  n\%  to  whom  the  tr: 

;  I  ,,n  -k  of  certain  sculpt 

'  '  in  v/iiuiiv^iii  vvill  betray  only  tb^« 
ii*i.iv«i,  v.ii^i  we  even  less  at  a  loss  than  ourselv^- 
of  a  common  origin  in  such  apparently  differ 
•'   ^*t*— -  ^  nnd  his  ''Jeunesse"  of  the  R 
uiicnt.  Lte  wii  Mv         .  w  O..C.  confound  these  w 
t  ui^sical  productions  of  -*^  -.  M.  Cavelier,  we  d 

fi.  And  this,  I  rep  "'  ^eir  purely  Greek  sp 

uic  ^ubt^rdination  in  tl  i  and  execution  of 

-*  dement    *^'  '    ^^^  the  sculptor  k 

ic;  '   the  ij]  hem  amon - 

tf'  .-!--    ....:.  w,.Mial  expressioii.3;.- 

imxi\  as  well.  Like  the  Gr 
muMv  liic  production  of  culture,  w'-* 
however  happily  inspired,  a* -^ 
easure  an.  .    .    -^k  ^       acutely  stim 

ops  the  fiftcuii  tN.   j  lie  sceptic  who  nus^j 

'     inquire  the  ais^uiicuon  between  that  vague  enf 
'  the  personal  idea  of  the  artist  concerned  ^ 
be  sii  '     disftinction  better  than  it  can  be  expre^ 

II .    vs  ords    *  m  appreciate  it  very  readily,  to  return 

rasting  the  ** Jeanne  d*Arc"  at  the  Lux 
♦vith   such    -  '      lit  treatment  of  the   s* 
liastien-Lepage  e,  now  in  the  New  'V 

urn,  illustraii:.   contrary  to  his     '- 
iicc  Qi  neglect"  en  design  in  favor  ui  m 

'  ^HL  i4:a  trai  represcntatio  '  cage's  " Jeanne  d^  ^  v. 


Jf  }  id/.  >    IHT  f>WIT>raV5«TI  YH  DHaM 


■♦    J      J      > 


CI        »      *  c 


•  •  • 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

is  the  creature  of  wilful  originality,  a  sort  of  embodied  protest 
against  conventionalism  in  historical  painting ;  she  is  the  illus- 
tration of  a  theory,  she  is  this  and  that  systematically  and 
not  spontaneously ;  the  predominance  of  the  painter's  person- 
ality is  plain  in  every  detail  of  his  creation.  Chapu's  "Maid"  is 
the  ideal,  more  or  less  perfectly  expressed ;  she  is  everybody's 
"Maid,"  more  or  less  adequately  embodied.  The  statue  is  the 
antipodes  of  the  conventional,  much  more  so,  even,  to  our 
modern  sense,  than  that  of  Rude ;  it  suggests  no  competition 
with  that  at  Versailles  or  the  many  other  characterless  concep- 
tions that  abound.  It  is  full  of  expression — arrested  just  before 
it  ceases  to  be  suggestive ;  of  individuality  restrained  on  the 
hither  side  of  peculiarity.  The  "Maid"  is  hearing  her  "voices" 
as  distinctly  as  Bastien-Lepage's  figure  is,  but  the  fact  is  not 
forced  upon  the  sense,  but  is  rather  disclosed  to  the  mind  with 
great  delicacy  and  the  dignity  becoming  sculpture.  No  one 
could,  of  course,  mistake  this  work  for  an  antique — an  error 
that  might  possibly  be  made,  supposing  the  conditions  favor- 
able, in  the  case  of  Chapu's  "Mercury";  but  it  presents,  never- 
theless, an  excellent  illustration  of  a  modern  working  naturally 
and  freely  in  the  antique  spirit.  It  is  as  affecting,  as  fuU  of 
direct  appeal,  as  a  modern  work  essays  to  be;  but  its  appeal  is 
to  the  sense  of  beauty,  to  the  imagination,  and  its  effect  is 
wrought  in  virtue  of  its  art  and  not  of  its  reaUty.  No,  individu- 
ality is  no  more  inconsistent  with  the  antique  spirit  than  it  is 
with  eccentricity,  with  the  extravagances  of  personal  expres- 
sion. Is  there  more  individuahty  in  a  thirteenth-century  gro- 
tesque than  in  the  "Faun"  of  the  Capitol?  For   sculpture 

[  145  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

especially,  art  is  eminently,  as  it  has  been  termed,  "the  disci- 
pline of  genius,"  and  it  is  only  after  the  sculptor's  genius  has 
submitted  to  the  discipline  of  culture  that  it  evinces  an  indi- 
viduality which  really  counts,  which  is  really  thrown  out  in 
relief  on  the  background  of  crude  personaHty.  And  if  there  be 
no  question  of  perfection,  but  only  of  the  artist's  attitude,  one 
has  but  to  ask  himself  the  real  meaning  of  the  epithet  Shak- 
spearian  to  be  assured  of  the  harmony  between  individuaUty 
and  the  most  impersonal  practice. 

Nevertheless,  this  attitude  and  this  perfection,  characteristic 
as  they  are  of  Chapu's  work,  have  their  peril.  When  the  quick- 
ening impulse,  of  whose  expression  they  are  after  all  but  con- 
ditions, fails,  they  suddenly  appear  so  misplaced  as  to  render 
insignificant  what  would  otherwise  have  seemed  "respectable" 
enough  work.  Everywhere  else  of  great  distinction — even  in 
the  execution  of  so  perfunctory  a  task  as  a  commission  for  a 
figure  of  "Mechanical  Art"  in  the  Tribunal  de  Commerce — at 
the  great  Triennial  Exposition  of  1883  Chapu  was  simply  insig- 
nificant. There  was  never  a  more  striking  illustration  of  the 
necessity  of  constant  renewal  of  inspiration,  of  the  constant 
danger  of  lapse  into  the  perfunctory  and  the  hackneyed,  which 
threatens  an  artist  of  precisely  Chapu's  qualities.  Another  of 
equal  eminence  escapes  this  peril ;  there  is  not  the  same  inter- 
dependence of  form  and  "content"  to  be  disturbed  by  failure 
in  the  latter ;  or,  better  still,  the  merits  of  form  are  not  so  dis- 
tinguished as  to  require  imperatively  a  corresponding  excel- 
lence of  intention.  In  fact,  it  is  because  of  the  exceptional 
position  that  he  occupies  in  deriving  from  the  antique,  instead 

[  146  ] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

of  showing  the  academic  devotion  to  Renaissance  romanticism 
which  characterizes  the  general  movement  of  academic  French 
sculpture,  that  in  any  consideration  of  this  sculpture  Chapu's 
work  makes  a  more  vivid  impression  than  that  of  his  contem- 
poraries, and  thus  naturally  takes  a  foremost  place. 


Ill 


M.  Paul  Dubois,  for  example,  in  the  characteristics  just  al- 
luded to,  presents  the  greatest  possible  contrast  to  Chapu ;  but 
he  will  never,  we  may  be  sure,  give  us  a  work  that  could  be 
called  insignificant.  His  work  will  always  express  himself,  and 
his  is  a  personaUty  of  very  positive  idiosyncrasy.  M.  Dubois, 
indeed,  is  probably  the  strongest  of  the  Academic  group  of 
French  sculptors  of  the  day.  The  tomb  of  General  Lamoriciere 
at  Nantes  has  remained  until  recently  one  of  the  very  finest 
achievements  of  sculpture  in  modern  times.  There  is  in  effect 
nothing  markedly  superior  in  the  Cathedral  of  St.  Denis, 
which  is  a  great  deal  to  say — much  more,  indeed,  than  the 
glories  of  the  Italian  Renaissance,  which  lead  us  out  of  mere 
momentum  to  forget  the  French,  permit  one  to  appreciate. 
Indeed,  the  sculpture  of  M.  Dubois  seems  positively  to  have 
but  one  defect,  a  defect  which  from  one  point  of  view  is  cer- 
tainly a  quahty,  the  defect  of  impeccability.  It  is  at  any  rate 
impeccable ;  to  seek  in  it  a  blemish,  or,  within  its  own  limita- 
tions, a  distinct  shortcoming,  is  to  lose  one's  pains.  As  work- 
manship, and  workmanship  of  the  subtler  kind,  in  which  every 
detail  of  surface  and  structure  is  perceived  to  have  been  intel- 

[147] 


FRENCH  ART 

ligently  felt  (though  rarely  enthusiastically  rendered),  it  is  not 
merely  satisfactory,  but  visibly  and  beautifully  perfect.  But  in 
the  category  in  which  M.  Dubois  is  to  be  placed  that  is  very 
little;  it  is  always  delightful,  but  it  is  not  especially  compli- 
mentary to  M.  Dubois,  to  occupy  one's  self  with  it.  On  the 
other  hand,  by  impeccability  is  certainly  not  here  meant  the 
mere  success  of  expressing  what  one  has  to  express — the  im- 
peccabiUty  of  Canova  and  his  successors,  for  example.  The  dif- 
ficulty is  with  M.  Dubois's  ideal,  with  what  he  so  perfectly 
expresses.  In  the  last  analysis  this  is  not  his  ideal  more  than 
ours.  And  this,  indeed,  is  what  makes  his  work  so  flawless  in 
our  eyes,  so  impeccable.  It  seems  as  if  of  what  he  attempts  he 
attains  the  type  itself;  every  one  must  recognize  its  justness. 

The  reader  will  say  at  once  here  that  I  am  cavilling  at  M. 
Dubois  for  what  I  praised  in  Chapu.  But  let  us  distinguish. 
The  two  artists  belong  to  whoUy  diflerent  categories.  Chapu's 
inspiration  is  the  antique  spirit.  M.  Dubois  is,  like  all  aca- 
demic French  sculptors,  except  Chapu  indeed,  absolutely  and 
integrally  a  romanticist,  completely  enamoured  of  the  Renais- 
sance. The  two  are  so  distinct  as  to  be  contradictory.  The 
moment  M.  Dubois  gives  us  the  type  in  a  "Florentine  Min- 
strel," to  the  exclusion  of  the  personal  and  the  particular,  he 
fails  in  imaginativeness  and  falls  back  on  the  conventional. 
The  type  of  a  "Florentine  Minstrel"  is  infallibly  a  convention. 
M.  Dubois,  not  being  occupied  directly  with  the  ideal,  is 
bound  to  carry  his  subject  and  its  idiosyncrasies  much  farther 
than  the  observer  could  have  foreseen.  To  rest  content  with 
expressing  gracefully  and  powerfully  the  notion  common  to  all 

[148] 


DUBOIS 
CHARITY DETAIL  FROM  THE  TOMB  OF  GENERAL  LAMORICI^RE 


FllENGH  ART 

felt  <ttiaugii  rarely  entii  renaerea),  it  is  noli 

'    tory,  l>ut  visibly  aiiU  li^aatifuliy  perfect  But  * 
\  which  M.  Dubois  is  to  be  placed  that  is  vc 
.  i>  always  delightful,  but  it  is  not  especially  com} 
"f.  Dubois,  to  occupy  one's  self  with  it.  On  t 
V  impeccability  is  certainly  not  here  meant  t 
.re  success  of  expressing  what  one  has  to  express — the  i; 
peccability  of  Car  1  his  successors,  for  example.  The  d 

;:,  ,;]f     ig,  Ti^th  M.  DuixMss  ideal,  with  what  he  so  perfect 
expres®«t-  In  the  last  analysis  this  is  not  his  ideal  more  th 
ours.  And  this,  indeed,  m  what  makes  his  work  so  flawless  m 
'S,  so  bv  le.  It  seems  as  if  of  what  he  attempts  ' 

very  one  must  recognize  its  justness 
once  here  that  I  am  cavilling  at 
iJiiixji  ffd  in  Chapu,  But  let  us  distingui 

The  tv  o  wholly  different  categories.  Chap 

inspin^  .e  spirit.  M.  Dubois  is,  like  all  a 

demir  French  sc  except  Chapu  indeed,  absolutely  a 

ly  a  romanticist,  completely  enamoured  of  the  Renii 
sauce.  The  two  are  tinct  as  to  be  contradictory.  T 

nsonient  M.  Dubois  gives  us  the  type  in  a  ** Florentine  M 

to  the  exclusion  (  personal  and  the  particul 

!^ji»  m  faaginativeness  and  tails  back  on  the  conven 
1  ;ie  type  <«f  a  "Florentine  Minstrel"  is  infallibly  a  conventj 
M.  Dubois  iiw>t  being  occupied  directly  with  the  ideal, 
md  to  carry  hm  subject  and  )syncrasies  much  fartihe| 

he  obsa^er  could  have  foreseen.  To  rest  conteiV 
,  gracefully  and  powerful!  lotion  common  to 


I  .  1 1 A'VAii  —  7  riii A irj 


•  •  • 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

connoisseurs  is  to  fall  short  of  what  one  justly  exacts  of  the 
romantic  artist.  Indeed,  in  exchange  for  this  one  would  accept 
very  faulty  work  in  this  category  with  resignation.  Whatever 
we  may  say  or  think,  however  we  may  admire  or  approve,  in 
romantic  art  the  quaUty  that  charms,  that  fascinates,  is  not 
adequacy  but  unexpectedness.  In  addition  to  the  understand- 
ing, the  instinct  demands  satisfaction.  The  virtues  of  "Charity" 
and  "Faith"  and  the  ideas  of  "MiHtary  Courage"  and  "Medi- 
tation" could  not  be  more  adequately  illustrated  than  by  the 
figures  which  guard  the  solemn  dignity  of  General  Lamori- 
ciere's  sleep.  There  is  a  certain  force,  a  breadth  of  view  in  the 
general  conception,  something  in  the  way  in  which  the  sculptor 
has  taken  his  task,  closely  allied  to  real  grandeur.  The  confi- 
dent and  even  careless  dependence  upon  the  unaided  value 
of  its  motive,  making  hardly  any  appeal  to  the  fancy  on  the 
one  hand,  and  seeking  no  poignant  effect  on  the  other,  endues 
the  work  with  the  poise  and  purity  of  effortless  strength.  It 
conveys  to  the  mind  a  clear  impression  of  manliness,  of  quali- 
ties morally  refreshing. 

But  such  work  educates  us  so  inexorably,  teaches  us  to  be  so 
exacting!  After  enjoying  it  to  its  and  our  utmost,  we  demand 
still  something  else,  something  more  moving,  more  stirring, 
something  more  directly  appealing  to  our  impulse  and  instinct. 
Even  in  his  free  and  charming  httle  "St.  John  Baptist"  of  the 
Luxembourg,  and  his  admirable  bust  of  Baudry  one  feels  Hke 
asking  for  more  freedom  still,  for  more  "swing."  Dubois  cer- 
tainly is  the  last  artist  who  needs  to  be  on  his  guard  against 
"letting  himself  go."  Why  is  it  that  in  varying  so  agreeably 

[  149  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

Renaissance  themes — compare  the  "Military  Courage"  and 
Michael  Angelo's  "Pensieroso,"  or  the  "Charity"  and  the  same 
group  in  Delia  Quercia  s  fountain  at  Sienna — it  is  restraint, 
rather  than  audacity,  that  governs  him?  Is  it  caution  or  per- 
versity ?  In  a  word,  imaginativeness  is  what  permanently  inter- 
ests and  attaches,  the  imaginativeness  to  which  in  sculpture 
the  ordinary  conventions  of  form  are  mere  conditions,  and  the 
ordinary  conventions  of  idea  mere  material.  One  can  hardly 
apply  generahties  of  the  kind  to  M.  Dubois  without  saying 
too  much,  but  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  one  may  illustrate 
the  grand  style  and  yet  fail  of  being  intimately  and  acutely 
sympathetic ;  and  M.  Dubois,  to  whose  largeness  of  treatment 
and  nobihty  of  conception  no  one  will  deny  something  truly 
suggestive  of  the  grand  style,  does  thus  fail.  It  is  not  that  he 
does  not  possess  charm,  and  charm  in  no  mean  proportion  to 
his  largeness  and  nobility,  but  for  the  elevation  of  these  into 
the  realm  of  magic,  into  the  upper  air  of  spontaneous  spiritual 
activity,  his  imagination  has,  for  the  romantic  imagination 
which  it  is,  a  trifle  too  much  self-possession — too  much  sanity, 
if  one  chooses.  He  has  the  ambitions,  the  faculties,  of  a  lyric 
poet,  and  he  gives  us  too  frequently  recitative. 


IV 


It  is  agreeable  in  many  ways  to  turn  from  the  rounded  and 
complete  impeccabihty  of  M.  Dubois  to  the  fancy  of  M.  Saint- 
Marceaux.  More  than  any  of  his  rivals,  M.  Saint-Marceaux 
possesses  the  charm  of  unexpectedness.  He  is  not  perhaps  to 

[150] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

be  called  an  original  genius,  and  his  work  will  probably  leave 
French  sculpture  very  nearly  where  it  found  it.  Indeed,  one 
readily  perceives  that  he  is  not  free  from  the  trammels  of  con- 
temporary convention.  But  how  easily  he  wears  them,  and  if 
no  "severe  pains  and  birth-throes"  accompany  the  evolution 
of  his  conceptions,  how  graceful  these  conceptions  are!  They 
are  perhaps  of  the  Canova  family;  the  "Harlequin,"  for  in- 
stance, which  has  had  such  a  prodigious  success,  is  essentially 
Milanese  sculpture;  essentially  even  the  "Genius  Guarding 
the  Secret  of  the  Tomb"  is  a  fantastic  rather  than  an  original 
work.  But  how  the  manner,  the  treatment,  triumphs  over  the 
Canova  insipidity!  It  is  not  only  Milanese  sculpture  better 
done,  the  execution  beautifully  sapient  and  truthful  instead 
of  cheaply  imitative,  the  idea  broadly  enforced  by  the  details 
instead  of  frittered  away  among  them;  it  is  Milanese  sculpture 
essentially  elevated  and  dignified.  Loosely  speaking,  the  mere 
article  de  vertu  becomes  a  true  work  of  art.  And  this  trans- 
formation, or  rather  this  development  of  a  germ  of  not  too 
great  intrinsic  importance,  is  brought  about  in  the  work  of 
Saint-Marceaux  by  the  presence  of  an  element  utterly  foreign 
to  the  Canova  sculpture  and  its  succession — the  element  of 
character.  If  to  the  clever  workmanship  of  the  Italians  he 
merely  opposed  workmanship  of  a  superior  kind  as  well  as 
quality — thoroughly  artistic  workmanship,  that  is  to  say — his 
sculpture  would  be  far  less  interesting  than  it  is.  He  does, 
indeed,  noticeably  do  this ;  there  is  a  felicity  entirely  delight- 
ful, almost  magical,  in  every  detail  of  his  work.  But  when  one 
compares  it  with  the  sculpture  of  M.  Dubois,  it  is  not  of  this 

[  151  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
that  one  thinks  so  much  as  of  a  certain  individual  character 
with  which  M.  Saint-Marceaux  always  contrives  to  endue  it. 
This  is  not  always  in  its  nature  sculptural,  it  must  be  ad- 
mitted, and  it  approaches  perhaps  too  near  the  character  of 
genre  to  have  the  enduring  interest  that  purely  sculptural 
qualities  possess.  But  it  is  always  individual,  piquant,  and 
charming,  and  in  it  consists  M.  Saint-Marceaux  s  claim  upon 
us  as  an  artist.  No  one  else,  even  given  his  powers  of  work- 
manship, that  is  to  say  as  perfectly  equipped  as  he,  could 
have  treated  so  thoroughly  conventional  a  genre  subject  as  the 
"Harlequin"  as  he  has  treated  it.  The  mask  is  certainly  one 
of  the  stock  properties  of  the  subject,  but  notice  how  it  is 
used  to  confer  upon  the  whole  work  a  character  of  mysterious 
witchery.  It  is  as  a  whole,  if  you  choose,  an  article  de  Paris, 
with  the  distinction  of  being  seriously  treated ;  the  modelling 
and  the  movement  admirable  as  far  as  they  go,  but  well  within 
the  bounds  of  that  anatomically  artistic  expression  which  is 
the  raison  d'Hre  of  sculpture  and  its  choice  of  the  human 
form  as  its  material.  But  the  character  saves  it  from  this  cate- 
gory; what  one  may  almost  call  its  psychological  interest  re- 
deems its  superficial  triviahty. 

M.  Saint-Marceaux  is  always  successful  in  this  way.  One  has 
only  to  look  at  the  eyes  of  his  figures  to  be  convinced  how 
subtle  is  his  art  of  expressing  character.  Here  he  swings  quite 
clear  of  all  convention  and  manifests  his  genius  positively 
and  directly.  The  unfathomable  secret  of  the  tomb  is  in  the 
spiritual  expression  of  the  guarding  genius,  and  the  elabo- 
rately complex  movement  concentrated  upon  the  urn  and  di- 

[152] 


SAINT-MARCEAUX 
GENIUS  GUARDING  THE  SECRET  OF  THE  TOMB 


FRENCH  ART 

-  ....,vii  as  of  a  certain  individual  charp*^ 

.  ..aint>Marceaux  always  contrives  to  endi 
.i^w  d..ways  ip  '•♦^  "ature  sculptural,  it  must  be  <. 
,     .*,  ai^  it  approii^.*v...  ^crhaps  too  near  the  character  < 
f^.  v»o^.^.  fVii:*  ^r^nring  interest  that  purely  sculptur. 
.*«i  it  is  always  individual,  piquant,  au 
,t«i»i.„i^,  M^M^si  iu  it  con^K*^*^  ^^   Saint-Marceauxs  claim  upo 
m  as  an  »r&t  No  one  ti^^,  .  >-  n  given  his  powers  of  worl 
«.«.   r,^^  that  ^^    *^  ^ay  as  perfectly  equipped  as  he,  coul 
*H[  so  ».itv«*jughly  conventional  a  gmre  subject  as  tli 
'  '^^  he  l»s  treat^*^  *^   '^^^^  mask  is  certainly  on 
.  ..   *^;...   ,.4"  k.,|^  notice  how  it 

'.riutm    u|*'-isit    LiJsx:  infinMsj    »-*?„?:  .iSk   r-t  -  '  "^  :"*T  Ol  mystcnOl ' 

^t  k  lis  a  w>^  -^     ^"  •     '  --''—-.        n  article  de  Pari 
* ...  .4.: ..».  i^  lUrsiy  If  t-ated ;  th6  modellii 

ai      i!!a;  ijm  br  as  they  go,  but  well  withi 

the  l>ounds  \ni%:mvj  artistic  expression  which 

the  rawon  amrc  m  :^cui^ptufe  and  its  choice  of  the  huma 
fonn  as  its  B^iteriaL  But  \he  character  saves  it  from  this  cat< 
gory;  what  one  may  r^'—    -^  eall  its  psychological  interest  rt 
'    ms  its  superficial  inviam 

.^1.  SaintrMarce&o:!*  is  always  successful  in  this  way.  One  hn 
-  '    '     •     '     it  the  eyes  oi  \m  figures  to  be  convinced  ho 
v:  IS  11  ^      riressing  character.  Here  he  swings  quit 

erf  all  com  *  md  manifests  his  genius  positivel 

viiii  directJy,  The  umaxnomable  secret  of  the  tomb  is  in  the 

^^tual  e\         '  -  ^1      i/uarding  genius,  and  the  elab< 

r^iejy.c^3«09pic>  ritrated  upon  the  urn  and  d 


c  c     c      CO      e 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

rectly  inspired  by  the  ephebes  of  the  Sistine  ceiling  is  a  mere 
bhnd.  The  same  is  true  of  the  portrait  heads  which  within 
his  range  M.  Saint-Marceaux  does  better  than  almost  any  one. 
M.  Renan's  "Confessions"  hardly  convey  as  distinct  a  notion  of 
character  as  his  bust  exhibited  at  the  Triennial  of  1883.  Many 
of  the  sculptors'  anonymous  heads,  so  to  speak,  are  hardly  less 
remarkable.  Long  after  the  sharp  edge  of  one's  interest  in  the 
striking  pose  of  his  "Harlequin"  and  the  fine  movement  and 
bizarre  features  of  his  "Genius"  has  worn  away,  their  curious 
spiritual  interest,  the  individual  cachet  of  their  character,  will 
sustain  them.  And  so  integrally  true  is  this  of  all  the  produc- 
tions of  M.  Saint-Marceaux's  talent,  that  it  is  quite  as  per- 
ceptible in  works  where  it  is  not  accentuated  and  emphasized 
as  it  is  in  those  of  which  I  have  been  speaking;  it  is  a  quahty 
that  will  bear  refining,  that  is  even  better  indeed  in  its  more 
subtile  manifestations.  The  figure  of  the  Luxembourg  Gallery, 
the  young  Dante  reading  Virgil,  is  an  example ;  a  girl's  head, 
the  forehead  swathed  in  a  turban,  first  exhibited  some  years 
ago,  is  another.  The  charm  of  these  is  more  penetrating, 
though  they  are  by  no  means  either  as  popular  or  as  "impor- 
tant" works  as  the  "Genius  of  the  Tomb"  or  the  "Harlequin." 
In  the  time  to  come  M.  Saint-Marceaux  wiU  probably  rely 
more  and  more  on  their  quality  of  grave  and  yet  alert  distinc- 
tion, and  less  on  striking  and  eccentric  variations  of  themes 
from  Michael  Angelo  like  the  "Genius,"  and  illustrations  Hke 
the  "Harlequin"  of  the  artistic  potentialities  of  the  Canova 
sculpture. 

With  considerably  less  force  than  M.  Dubois  and  decidedly 

[  153  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
less  piquancy  than  M.  Saint-Marceaux,  M.  Antonin  Merci^ 
has  perhaps  greater  refinement  than  either.  His  outUne  is  a 
trifle  softer,  his  sentiment  more  gracious,  more  suave.  His 
work  is  difiicult  to  characterize  satisfactorily,  and  the  fact  may 
of  course  proceed  from  its  lack  of  force,  as  well  as  from  the 
well-understood  difficulty  of  translating  into  epithets  anything 
so  essentially  elusive  as  suavity  and  grace  of  form.  At  one 
epoch  in  any  examination  of  academic  French  sculpture  that 
of  M.  Mercid  seems  the  most  interesting ;  it  is  so  free  from 
exaggeration  of  any  kind  on  the  one  hand,  it  realizes  its  idea 
so  satisfactorily  on  the  other,  and  this  idea  is  so  agreeable,  so 
refined,  and  at  the  same  time  so  dignified.  The  "David"  is  an 
early  work  now  in  the  Luxembourg  Gallery,  reproductions  of 
which  are  very  popular,  and  the  reader  may  judge  how  well 
it  justifies  these  remarks.  Being  an  early  work,  one  cannot 
perhaps  insist  on  its  originality;  in  France,  a  young  sculptor 
must  be  original  at  his  peril ;  his  education  is  so  complete,  he 
must  have  known  and  studied  the  beauties  of  classic  sculpture 
so  thoroughly,  that  not  to  be  impressed  by  them  so  profoundly 
as  to  display  his  appreciativeness  in  his  first  work  is  apt  to 
argue  a  certain  insensitiveness.  And  every  one  cannot  have 
creative  genius.  What  a  number  of  admirable  works  we  should 
be  compelled  to  forego  if  creative  genius  were  demanded  of  an 
artist  of  the  present  day  when  the  best  minds  of  the  time  are 
occupied  with  other  things  than  art!  One  is  apt  to  forget  that 
in  our  day  the  minds  that  correspond  with  the  artistic  miracles 
of  the  Renaissance  are  absorbed  in  quite  different  departments 
of  effort.  M.  Mercies  "David"  would  perhaps  never  have  ex- 

[  154  ] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

isted  but  for  Donatello's.  As  far  as  plastic  motive  is  concerned, 
it  may  without  injustice  be  called  a  variant  of  that  admirable 
creation,  and  from  every  point  of  view  except  that  of  dramatic 
grace  it  is  markedly  inferior  to  its  inspiration;  as  an  embodi- 
ment of  triumphant  youth,  of  the  divine  ease  with  which  mere 
force  is  overcome,  it  has  only  a  superficial  resemblance  to  the 
original. 

But  if  with  M.  Mercie  "David"  was  simply  a  classic  theme 
to  be  treated,  which  is  exactly  what  it  of  course  was  not  with 
Donatello,  it  is  undeniable  that  he  has  expressed  himself  very 
distinctly  in  his  treatment.  A  less  sensitive  artist  would  have 
vulgarized  instead  of  merely  varying  the  conception,  whereas 
one  can  easily  see  in  M.  Mercie  s  handling  of  it  the  ease, 
science,  and  felicitous  movement  that  have  since  expressed 
themselves  more  markedly,  more  positively,  but  hardly  more 
unmistakably,  in  the  sculptor's  maturer  works.  Of  these  the 
chief  is  perhaps  the  "Gloria  Victis,"  which  now  decorates 
the  Square  Montholon ;  and  its  identity  of  authorship  with  the 
"David"  is  apparent  in  spite  of  its  structural  complexity  and 
its  far  greater  importance  both  in  subject  and  execution.  Its 
subject  is  the  most  inspiring  that  a  French  sculptor  since  the 
events  of  1870-71  (so  Ughtly  considered  by  those  who  only  see 
the  theatric  side  of  French  character)  could  treat.  Its  general 
interest,  too,  is  hardly  inferior;  there  is  something  generally 
ennobling  in  the  celebration  of  the  virtues  of  the  brave  de- 
feated that  surpasses  the  commonplace  of  pseans.  M.  Mercie 
was,  in  this  sense,  more  fortunate  than  the  sculptor  to  whom 
the  Berlinese  owe  the  bronze  commemoration  of  their  vic- 

[155] 


FRENCH  ART 
tory.  Perhaps  to  call  his  treatment  entirely  worthy  of  the 
theme,  is  to  forget  the  import  of  such  works  as  the  tombs  of 
the  Medici  Chapel  at  Florence.  There  is  a  region  into  whose 
precincts  the  dramatic  quality  penetrates  only  to  play  an  insuf- 
ficient part.  But  in  modern  art  to  do  more  than  merely  to 
keep  such  truths  in  mind,  to  insist  on  satisfactory  plastic  illus- 
trations of  them,  is  not  only  to  prepare  disappointment  for 
one's  self,  but  to  risk  misjudging  admirable  and  elevated  ef- 
fort; and  to  regret  the  fact  that  France  had  only  M.  Mercid 
and  not  Michael  Angelo  to  celebrate  her  "Gloria  Victis"  is  to 
commit  both  of  these  errors.  After  all,  the  subjects  are  differ- 
ent, and  the  events  of  1870-71  had  compensations  for  France 
which  the  downfall  of  Florentine  liberty  was  without;  so  that, 
indeed,  a  note  of  unmixed  melancholy,  however  lofty  its  strain, 
would  have  been  a  discord  which  M.  Mercie  has  certainly 
avoided.  He  has  avoided  it  in  rather  a  marked  way,  it  is  true. 
His  monument  is  dramatic  and  stirring  rather  than  inwardly 
moving.  It  is  rhetorical  rather  than  truly  poetic;  and  the  ad- 
mirable quality  of  its  rhetoric,  its  complete  freedom  from  vul- 
gar or  sentimental  alloy — its  immense  superiority  to  Anglo- 
Saxon  rhetoric,  in  fine — does  not  conceal  the  truth  that  it  is 
rhetoric,  that  it  is  prose  and  not  poetry  after  all.  Mercid's 
"Gloria  Victis"  is  very  fine;  I  know  nothing  so  fine  in  modern 
sculpture  outside  of  France.  But  then  there  is  not  very  much 
that  is  fine  at  all  in  modern  sculpture  outside  of  France ;  and 
modern  French  sculpture,  and  M.  Mercie  along  with  it  as  one 
of  its  most  eminent  ornaments,  have  made  it  impossible  to 
speak  of  them  in  a  relative  way.  The  antique  and  the  Renais- 

[  156] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 
sance  sculpture  alone  furnish  their  fit  association,  and  like  the 
Renaissance  and  the  antique  sculpture  they  demand  a  positive 
and  absolute,  and  not  a  comparative  criticism. 


Well,  then,  speaking  thus  absolutely  and  positively,  the  car- 
dinal defect  of  the  Institute  sculpture — and  the  refined  and 
distinguished  work  of  M.  Mercie  better  perhaps  than  almost 
any  other  assists  us  to  see  this — is  its  over-carefulness  for 
style.  This  is  indeed  the  explanation  of  what  I  mentioned  at 
the  outset  as  the  chief  characteristic  of  this  sculpture,  the 
academic  inelasticity,  namely,  with  which  it  essays  to  repro- 
duce the  Renaissance  romanticism.  But  for  the  fondness  for 
style  integral  in  the  French  mind  and  character,  it  would  per- 
ceive the  contradiction  between  this  romanticism  and  any 
canons  except  such  as  are  purely  intuitive  and  indefinable.  In 
comparison  with  the  Renaissance  sculptors,  the  French  aca- 
demic sculptors  of  the  present  day  are  certainly  too  exclusive 
devotees  of  BufFon's  **order  and  movement,"  and  too  httle 
occupied  with  the  thought  itself — too  little  individual.  In 
comparison  with  the  antique,  this  is  less  apparent,  but  I  fancy 
not  less  real.  We  are  so  accustomed  to  think  of  the  antique  as 
the  pure  and  simple  embodiment  of  style,  as  a  subhmation,  so 
to  speak,  of  the  individual  into  style  itself,  that  in  this  respect 
we  are  scarcely  fair  judges  of  the  antique.  In  any  case  we  know 
very  little  of  it ;  we  can  hardly  speak  of  it  except  by  periods. 
But  it  is  plain  that  the  Greek  is  so  superior  to  any  subsequent 

[157] 


FRENCH  ART 

sculpture  in  this  one  respect  of  style  that  we  rarely  think  of 
its  other  qualities.  Our  judgment  is  inevitably  a  comparative 
one,  and  inevitably  a  comparative  judgment  fixes  our  attention 
on  the  Greek  supremacy  of  style.  Indeed,  in  looking  at  the 
antique  the  thought  itself  is  often  alien  to  us,  and  the  order 
and  movement,  being  more  nearly  universal  perhaps,  are  all 
that  occupy  us.  A  family  tombstone  lying  in  the  cemetery  at 
Athens,  and  half  buried  in  the  dust  which  blows  from  the 
Piraeus  roadway,  has  more  style  than  M.  Mercies  "Quand- 
Meme"  group  for  Belfort,  which  has  been  the  subject  of 
innumerable  encomiums,  and  which  has  only  style  and  no 
individuality  whatever  to  commend  it.  And  the  Athenian 
tombstone  was  probably  furnished  to  order  by  the  marble- 
cutting  artist  of  the  period,  corresponding  to  those  whose  signs 
one  sees  at  the  entrances  of  our  own  large  cemeteries.  Still  we 
may  be  sure  that  the  ordinary  Athenian  citizen  who  adjudged 
prizes  between  iEschylus  and  Sophocles,  and  to  whom  Pericles 
addressed  the  oration  which  only  exceptional  culture  nowadays 
thoroughly  appreciates,  found  plenty  of  individuality  in  the 
decoration  of  the  Parthenon,  and  was  perfectly  conscious  of 
the  difference  between  Phidias  and  his  pupils.  Even  now,  if 
one  takes  the  pains  to  think  of  it,  the  difference  between  such 
works  as  the  so-called  *' Genius"  of  the  Vatican  and  the  Athe- 
nian marbles,  or  between  the  Niobe  group  at  Florence  and  the 
Venus  torso  at  Naples,  for  example,  seems  markedly  individual 
enough,  though  the  element  of  style  is  still  to  our  eyes  the 
most  prominent  quality  in  each.  Indeed,  if  one  really  reflects 
upon  the  subject,  it  will  not  seem  exaggeration  to  say  that  to 

[  158  ] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

any  one  who  has  studied  both  with  any  thoroughness  it  would 
be  more  difficult  to  individualize  the  mass  of  modern  French 
sculpture  than  even  that  of  the  best  Greek  epoch — the  epoch 
when  style  was  most  perfect,  when  its  reign  was,  as  it  some- 
times appears  to  us,  most  absolute.  And  if  we  consider  the 
Renaissance  sculpture,  its  complexity  is  so  great,  its  individ- 
uality is  so  pronounced,  that  one  is  apt  to  lose  sight  of  the 
important  part  which  style  really  plays  in  it.  In  a  work  by 
Donatello  we  see  first  of  all  his  thought;  in  a  Madonna  of 
Mino's  it  is  the  idea  that  charms  us ;  the  Delia  Robbia  frieze 
at  Pistoja  is  pure  genre. 

But  modern  academic  French  sculpture  feels  the  weight  of 
De  Musset's  handicap — it  is  born  too  late  into  a  world  too 
old.  French  art  in  general  feels  this,  I  think,  and  painting 
suffers  from  it  equally  with  sculpture.  Culture,  the  Institute, 
oppress  individuality.  But  whereas  Corot  and  Millet  have 
triumphed  over  the  Institute  there  are — there  were,  at  least, 
till  yesterday — hardly  any  Millets  and  Corots  of  sculpture 
whose  triumph  is  as  yet  assured.  The  tendency,  the  weight 
of  authority,  the  verdict  of  criticism,  always  conservative  in 
France,  are  all  the  other  way.  At  the  Ecole  des  Beaux- Arts 
one  learns,  negatively,  not  to  be  ridiculous.  This  is  a  great 
deal;  it  is  more  than  can  be  learned  anywhere  else  nowadays 
— witness  German,  Italian,  above  all  English  exhibitions.  Posi- 
tively one  learns  the  importance  of  style ;  and  if  it  were  not 
for  academic  French  sculpture,  one  would  say  that  this  was 
something  the  importance  of  which  could  not  be  exaggerated. 
But  in  academic  French  sculpture  it  is  exaggerated,  and,  what 

[159] 


FRENCH  ART 

is  fatal,  one  learns  to  exaggerate  it  in  the  schools.  The  tradi- 
tions of  Houdon  are  noticeably  forgotten.  Not  that  Houdon's 
art  is  not  eminently  characterized  by  style;  the  "San  Bruno" 
at  Rome  is  in  point  of  style  an  antique.  But  compare  his 
"Voltaire"  in  the  Joy  er  of  the  Com^die  Fran9aise  with  Chapu's 
**Berryer"  of  the  Palais  de  Justice,  to  take  one  of  the  very 
finest  portrait-statues  of  the  present  day.  Chapu's  statue  is 
more  than  irreproachable,  it  is  elevated  and  noble,  it  is  in  the 
grand  style;  but  it  is  plain  that  its  impressiveness  is  due  to 
the  fact  that  the  subject  is  conceived  as  the  Orator  in  general 
and  handled  with  almost  a  single  eye  to  style.  The  personal 
interest  that  accentuates  every  detail  of  the  "Voltaire" — the 
physiognomy,  the  pose,  the  right  hand,  are  marvellously  char- 
acteristic— simply  is  not  sought  for  in  Chapu's  work.  Of  this 
quality  there  is  more  in  Houdon's  bust  of  Moliere,  whom  of 
course  Houdon  never  saw,  than  in  almost  any  production  of 
the  modern  school.  Chapu's  works,  and  such  exceptions  as  the 
heads  of  Baudry  and  Renan  already  mentioned,  apart,  one 
perceives  that  the  modern  school  has  made  too  many  statues 
of  the  R^publique,  too  many  "Ledas"  and  "Susannahs"  and 
"Quand-M^mes"  and  "Gloria  Victis."  And  its  penchant  for 
Renaissance  canons  only  emphasizes  the  absolute  common- 
place of  many  of  these. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  Houdon's  felicitous  harmony  of  style 
and  individual  force  are  forgotten,  there  is  hardly  any  recog- 
nized succession  to  the  imaginative  freedom,  the  verve,  the 
triumphant  personal  fertility  of  Rude  and  Carpeaux.  At  least, 
such  as  there  is  has  not  preserved  the  dignity  and  in  many 

[160] 


FALGUlfeRE 
SAINT  VINCENT  DE  PAUL 


FnTTxrrH  ART 

^arus  U)  exaggerate  it  in  the  schools.  The  ir^ 
are  noticeably  forgotten.  Not  that  Hondo 
'V  characterized  by  style;  the  "San  Brun 
hi   liouic  t  of  style  aa  antique.  But  compare 

er  of  the  Com^e  Fran9aise  with  Chap 
i  uie  Palais  db  Justice,  to  take  one  of  the  V( 

finest  purtiuit-statues  of  the  present  day.  Chapu  s  statue 
more  than  irr»  *    ' '  'ited  and  noble,  it  is  in 

grnud  style;  bui  it  iS  piaxii  mat  r  ■    ^veness  is  due  to 

the  &ct  that  the  subject  is  *  .>  iixe  Orator  in  gene?  ' 

mmi  h^      '    '      '  '     ^m<Bt  8  '   '     The  perso? 

oltaire" — tne 
aVellously  cb 
lur  m  <Limpu  s  work.  Of  t 
whom 
CO 4  '  ■■■■t  ui  aliiiu2>t  any  producf* 

Oie  lu-    •  ■  works,  and  sv  ^         ^eptions  as  uie 

her  *enan  already  mentioued,  apart,  < 

>ol  has  made  too  many  s 
iiiany  **Ledas"  and  "Susannalis    aiia 
Gloria  Victis."  And  its  penchant  for| 
hasizes  the  "absolute  commoni 
\mmm  irf  maiiy  of  tn 

Oti  the  other  hand,  ii  H*  felicitous  harmo) 

and  individua  are.fo  is  hard* 

IU2^  succ  bj  the  inai^fuiative  freedom,  tiie 

triimxphiant  perjitMial  fertility  of  Rude  and  Carpeaux.  At  iciist 
t^adb  as  there  is  has  I  the  dignity  and  in  many 


:iH:irKxi/  I 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

instances  scarcely  the  decorum  of  those  splendid  artists.  Much 
of  the  sculpture  which  figures  at  the  yearly  Salons  is,  to  be 
sure,  the  absolute  negation  of  style;  its  main  characteristic  is 
indeed  eccentricity;  its  main  virtues,  sincerity  (which  in  art, 
of  course,  is  only  a  very  elementary  virtue)  and  good  model- 
ling (which  in  sculpture  is  equally  elementary).  Occasionally 
in  the  midst  of  this  display  of  fantasticality  there  is  a  work  of 
promise  or  even  of  positive  interest.  The  observer  who  has  not 
a  weak  side  for  the  graceful  conceits,  invariably  daintily  pre- 
sented and  beautifully  modelled,  of  M.  Moreau-Vauthier  for 
example,  must  be  hard  to  please ;  they  are  of  the  very  essence 
of  the  article  de  Paris,  and  only  abnormal  primness  can  refuse 
to  recognize  the  truth  that  the  article  de  Paris  has  its  art  side. 
M.  Moreau-Vauthier  is  not  perhaps  a  modern  Cellini;  he  has 
certainly  never  produced  anything  that  could  be  classed  with 
the  "  Perseus "  of  the  Loggia  de'  Lanzi,  or  even  with  the  Fon- 
tainebleau  "Diana";  but  he  does  more  than  any  one  else  to 
keep  alive  the  tradition  of  Florentine  preciosity,  and  about 
everything  he  does  there  is  something  delightful. 

Still  the  fantastic  has  not  made  much  headway  in  the  In- 
stitute, and  it  is  so  foreign  to  the  French  genius,  which  never 
tolerates  it  after  it  has  ceased  to  be  novel,  that  it  probably 
never  will.  It  is  a  great  tribute  to  French  "cathohcity  of  mind 
and  largeness  of  temper"  that  Carpeaux's  "La  Danse"  remains 
in  its  position  on  the  facade  of  the  Grand  Op^ra.  French  sen- 
timent regarding  it  was  doubtless  accurately  expressed  by  the 
fanatic  who  tried  to  ink  it  indelibly  after  it  was  first  exposed. 
This  vandal  was  right  from   his  point  of  view — the  point 

[161] 


FRENCH  ART 

of  view  of  style.  Almost  the  one  work  of  absolute  sponta- 
neity among  the  hundreds  which  without  and  within  decorate 
M.  Gamier  s  edifice,  it  is  thus  a  distinct  jar  in  the  general 
harmony;  it  distinctly  mars  the  "order  and  movement"  of 
M.  Garnier's  thought,  which  is  fundamentally  opposed  to  spon- 
taneity. But  imagine  the  devotion  to  style  of  a  milieu  in  which 
a  person  who  would  throw  ink  on  a  confessedly  fine  work  of 
art  is  actuated  by  an  impersonal  dislike  of  incongruity!  Dis-  | 
like  of  the  incongruous  is  almost  a  French  passion,  and, 
Uke  all  qualities,  it  has  its  defect,  the  defect  of  tolerating 
the  conventional.  It  is  through  this  tolerance,  for  example, 
that  one  of  the  freest  of  French  critics  of  art,  a  true  Vol- 
tairian, Stendhal,  was  led  actually  to  find  Guido's  ideal  of 
beauty  higher  than  Raphael's,  and  to  miss  entirely  the  gran-  1 
deur  of  Tintoretto.  Critical  opinion  in  France  has  not  changed 
radically  since  Stendhal's  day. 


VI 


The  French    sculptor   may   draw  his   inspiration   from   the    j 
sources  of  originality  itself,  his   audience  will  measure  the    \ 
result  by   conventions.    It  is  this  fact  undoubtedly  that  is    '\ 
largely  responsible  for  the  over-carefulness  for  style  already 
remarked.  Hence  the  work  of  M.  Aim^-Millet  and  of  Profes- 
sors Guillaume  and  Cavelier,  and  the  fact  that  they  are  pro- 
fessors. Hence  also  the  election  of  M.  Falgui^re  to  succeed  to 
the  chair  of  the  Beaux- Arts  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  Jouf- 
froy  some  years  ago.  All  of  these  have  done  admirable  work. 

[162] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

Professor  Guillaume's  Gracchi  group  at  the  Luxembourg  is 
alone  enough  to  atone  for  a  mass  of  productions  of  which  the 
"Castahan  Fount"  of  a  recent  Salon  is  the  cold  and  correct 
representative.  Cavelier's  "Cluck,"  destined  for  the  Op^ra,  is 
spirited,  even  if  a  trifle  galvanic.  Millet's  "Apollo,"  which 
crowns  the  main  gable  of  the  Op^ra,  stands  out  among  its 
author's  other  works  as  a  miracle  of  grace  and  rhythmic  move- 
ment. M.  Falguiere's  admirers,  and  they  are  numerous,  will 
object  to  the  association  here  made.  Falguiere's  range  has 
always  been  a  wide  one,  and  everything  he  has  done  has 
undoubtedly  merited  a  generous  portion  of  the  prodigious 
encomiums  it  has  invariably  obtained.  Yet,  estimating  it  in 
any  other  way  than  by  energy,  variety,  and  mass,  it  is  impos- 
sible to  praise  it  highly  with  precision.  It  is  too  plainly  the 
work  of  an  artist  who  can  do  one  thing  as  well  as  another,  and 
of  which  cleverness  is,  after  all,  the  spiritual  standard.  Bar- 
tholdi,  who  also  should  not  be  forgotten  in  any  sketch  of 
French  sculpture,  would,  I  am  sure,  have  acquitted  himself 
more  satisfactorily  than  Falgui^re  did  in  the  colossal  groups  of 
the  Trocadero  and  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  de  I'Etoile.  To  acquit 
himself  satisfactorily  is  Bartholdi's  specialty.  These  two  groups 
are  the  largest  and  most  important  that  a  sculptor  can  have  to 
do.  The  crowning  of  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  at  least  was  a  splen- 
did opportunity.  Neither  of  them  had  any  distinction  of  out- 
line, of  mass,  of  relation,  or  of  idea.  Both  were  conventional  to 
the  last  degree.  That  on  the  Arc  had  even  its  ludicrous  details, 
such  as  occur  only  from  artistic  absent-mindedness  in  a  work 
conceived  and  executed  in  a  fatigued  and  hackneyed  spirit. 

[163] 


FRENCH  ART 

The  "Saint  Vincent  de  Paul"  of  the  Pantheon,  which  justly 
passes  for  the  sculptor's  chef-dCoeuvre,  is  in  idea  a  work  of  large 
humanity.  M.  Falguiere  is  behind  no  one  in  ability  to  conceive 
a  subject  of  this  kind  with  propriety,  and  his  subject  here  is 
inspiring  if  ever  a  subject  was.  The  "Petit  Martyr"  of  the 
Luxembourg  has  a  real  charm,  but  it  too  is  content  with  too 
httle,  as  one  finds  out  in  seeing  it  often ;  and  it  is  in  no  sense  a 
large  work,  scarcely  larger  than  the  tiresomely  popular  "Run- 
ning Boy"  of  the  same  museum,  which  nevertheless  in  its  day 
marked  an  epoch  in  modelling.  Indeed,  so  slight  is  the  spirit- 
ual hold  that  M.  Falguiere  has  on  one,  that  it  really  seems  as 
if  he  were  at  his  best  in  such  a  frankly  carnal  production  as  his 
since  variously  modified  "Nymph  Hunting"  of  the  Triennial 
Exposition  of  1883.  The  idea  is  nothing  or  next  to  nothing, 
but  the  surface  faire  is  superb. 

M.  Barrias,  M.  Delaplanche,  and  M.  Le  Feuvre  have  each 
of  them  quite  as  much  spontaneity  as  M.  Falguiere,  though 
the  work  of  neither  is  as  important  in  mass  and  variety.  M. 
Delaplanche  is  always  satisfactory,  and  beyond  this  there  is 
something  large  about  what  he  does  that  confers  dignity  even 
in  the  absence  of  quick  interest.  His  proportions  are  simple, 
his  outline  flowing,  and  the  agreeable  ease  of  his  compositions 
makes  up  to  a  degree  for  any  lack  of  sympathetic  sentiment 
or  impressive  significance:  witness  his  excellent  "Maternal 
Instruction,"  of  the  little  park  in  front  of  Sainte  Clothilde. 
M.  Le  Feuvre's  qualities  are  very  nearly  the  reverse  of  these : 
he  has  a  fondness  for  integrity  quite  hostile  in  his  case  to  sim-  I 
plicity.  In  his  very  frank  appeal  to  one's  susceptibility  he  is  a 

[  164  ] 


BARRIAS 
THE  FIRST  FUNERAL 


FRENCH  ART 

The  '*Saiiit  Vmceot  ifc  Paul"  of  the  Panth^n,  which  ju 
pmm&  for  the  sculptor's  chef-dceuvret  is  in  idea  a  work  of  large 
\i  y.  M.  Falgui^re  is  behind  no  one  in  ability  to  cone 

a  subject  of  this  kind  with  propriety,  and  his  subject  hei 
imptring  if  ever  a  subject  was.  The  "Petit  Martyr"  of  ^ 
Ijuxembourg  has  a  real  charm,  but  it  too  is  content  with 
Httle,  as  one  finds  out  in  seeing  it  often ;  and  it  is  in  no  sen 
lai^  work,  scarcely  lai^r  than  the  tiresomely  popular  "E 
ning  Boy"  of  the  mme  museum,  which  nevertheless  in  its  dift^ 
marked  Ml  *  modelhng.  Indeed,  so  slight  is  the  spiril- 

nal  hold  ui^re  has  on  one,  that  it  really  seem 

if  he  ^  i  such  a  frankly  carnal  production  a^ 

^f«^  .1  "Nymph  Hunting"  of  thq  Trieii 

Ex  The  idea  is  nothing  or  next  to  notlr 

bii  ^  is  superb. 

M  I  )elaplanche,  and  M,  Le  Feuvre  have  t 

of  them  much  spontaneity  as  M.  Falguiere,  the 

the  work  ^m  r  is  as  important  in  mass  and  variety. 

T)  always  satisfactory,  and  beyond  this  there 

something  large  about  what  he  does  that  confers  dignity  even 
in  the  absence  of  quick  interest.  His  proportions  are  sim 
his  outline  flowing,  and  the  agreeable  ease  of  his  compositi 
makes  up  to  a  degree  for  any  lack  of  sympathetic  sentim 
or  iinpressive  significance:  witness  his  excellent  "Matej 
Instruction,"  of  the  little  park  in  front  of  Sainte  Clothil 
Bf .  I^e  Feiivre^s  qualities  are  very  nearly  the  reverse  of  th( 
he  has  u  fondness  for  integrity  quite  hostile  in  his  case  to  s 
}>ljrity.  In  his  very  frank  appeal  to  one's  susceptibility  he  is  a 


It^HirAYA  TKHI'-I    IHT 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

little  careless  of  sculptural  considerations,  which  he  is  prone  to 
sacrifice  to  pictorial  ends.  The  result  is  a  mannerism  that  in 
the  end  ceases  to  impress,  and  even  becomes  disagreeable.  As 
nearly  as  may  be  in  a  French  sculptor  it  borders  on  sentimen- 
tality, and  finally  the  swaying  attitudes  of  his  figures  become 
limp,  and  the  startled-fawn  eyes  of  his  maidens  and  youths 
appear  less  touching  than  lackadaisical.  But  his  being  himself 
too  conscious  of  it  should  not  obscure  the  fact  that  he  has  a 
way  of  his  own.  M.  Barrias  is  an  artist  of  considerably  greater 
powers  than  either  M.  Le  Feuvre  or  M.  Delaplanche;  but  one 
has  a  vague  perception  that  his  powers  are  limited,  and  that 
to  desire  in  his  case  what  one  so  sincerely  wishes  in  the  case  of 
M.  Dubois,  namely,  that  he  would  "let  himself  go,"  would  be 
unwise.  Happily,  when  he  is  at  his  best  there  is  no  temptation 
to  form  such  a  wish.  The  "Premieres  Funerailles"  is  a  superb 
work — "the  chef-d'ceuvre  of  our  modern  sculpture,"  a  French 
critic  enthusiastically  terms  it.  It  is  hardly  that;  it  has  hardly 
enough  spiritual  distinction — not  quite  enough  of  either  ele- 
gance or  elevation — to  merit  such  sweeping  praise.  But  it 
may  be  justly  termed,  I  think,  the  most  completely  represen- 
tative of  the  masterpieces  of  that  sculpture.  Its  triumph  over 
the  prodigious  difficulties  of  elaborate  composition  "in  the 
round" — difficulties  to  which  M.  Barrias  succumbed  in  the 
"Spartacus"  of  the  Tuileries  Gardens — and  its  success  in 
subordinating  the  details  of  a  group  to  the  end  of  enforcing  a 
single  motive,  preserving  the  while  their  individual  interest, 
are  complete.  Nothing  superior  in  this  respect  has  been  done 
since  John  of  Bolognas  "Rape  of  the  Sabines." 

[  165  ] 


FRENCH  ART 


VII 


M.  Emmanuel  Fr^miet  occupies  a  place  by  himself.  There 
have  been  but  two  modern  sculptors  who  have  shown  an 
equally  pronounced  genius  for  representing  animals — namely,  | 
Barye,  of  course,  and  Barye's  clever  but  not  great  pupil,  Cain. 
The  tigress  in  the  Central  Park,  perhaps  the  best  bronze  there 
(the  competition  is  not  exacting),  and  the  best  also  of  the  sev-  ; 
eral  variations  of  the  theme  of  which,  at  one  time,  the  sculptor  | 
apparently  could  not  tire,  familiarizes  Americans  with  the  tal- 
ent of  Cain.  In  this  association  Rouillard,  whose  horse  in  the 
Trocaddro  Gardens  is  an  animated  and  elegant  work,  ought 
to  be  mentioned,  but  it  is  hardly  as  good  as  the  neighboring  \ 
elephant  of  Fr^miet  as  mere  animal  representation  (the  genre 
exists  and  has  excellences  and  defects  of  its  own),  while  in 
more  purely  artistic  worth  it  is  quite  eclipsed  by  its  rival. 
Still  if  fauna  is  interesting  in  and  of  itself,  which  no  one  who 
knows  Barye's  work  would  controvert,  it  is  still  more  interest- 
ing when,  to  put  it  brutally,  something  is  done  with  it.  In  his 
ambitious  and  colossal  work  at  the  Trocad^ro,  M.  Fr^miet 
does  in  fact  use  his  fauna  freely  as  artistic  material,  though 
at  first  sight  it  is  its  zoological  interest  that  appears  para- 
mount The  same  is  true  of  the  elephant  near  by,  in  which 
it  seems  as  if  he  had  designedly  attacked  the  difficult  problem 
of  rendering  embodied  awkwardness  decorative.  Still  more 
conspicuous,  of  course,  is  the  artistic  interest,  the  fancy,  the 
humor,  the  sportive  grace   of  his  Luxembourg  group  of  a 

[166] 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 

young  satyr  feeding  honey  to  a  brace  of  bear's  cubs,  because 
he  here  concerns  hunself  more  directly  with  his  idea  and  gives 
his  genius  freer  play.  And  every  one  will  remember  the  sensa- 
tion caused  by  his  impressively  repulsive  "Gorilla  Carrying  off 
a  Woman."  But  it  is  when  he  leaves  this  kind  of  thing  en- 
tirely, and,  wholly  forgetful  of  his  studies  at  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  devotes  himself  to  purely  monumental  work,  that  he 
is  at  his  best.  And  in  saying  this  I  do  not  at  all  mean  to  insist 
on  the  superiority  of  monumental  sculpture  to  the  sculpture 
oi  fauna;  it  is  superior,  and  Barye  himself  cannot  make  one 
content  with  the  exclusive  consecration  of  admirable  talent  to 
picturesque  anatomy  illustrating  distinctly  unintellectual  pas- 
sions. M.  Fremiet,  in  ecstasy  over  his  picturesque  anatomy  at 
the  Jardin  des  Plantes,  would  scout  this ;  but  it  is  nevertheless 
true  that  in  such  works  as  the  "Age  de  la  pierre,"  which,  if  it 
may  be  called  a  monumental  clock-top,  is  nevertheless  cer- 
tainly monumental;  his  "Louis  d'Orl^ans,"  in  the  quadrangle 
of  the  restored  Chateau  de  Pierrefonds;  his  "Jeanne  d'Arc" 
(the  later  statue  is  not,  I  think,  essentially  different  from  the 
earlier  one);  and  his  "Torch-bearer"  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in 
the  new  Hotel  de  Ville  of  Paris,  not  only  is  his  subject  a  sub- 
ject of  loftier  and  more  enduring  interest  than  his  elephants 
and  deer  and  bears,  but  his  own  genius  finds  a  more  congenial 
medium  of  expression.  In  other  words,  any  one  who  has  seen 
his  "Torch-bearer"  or  his  ** Louis  d'Orleans"  must  conclude 
that  M.  Fremiet  is  losing  his  time  at  the  Jardin  des  Plantes. 
In  monumental  works  of  the  sort  he  displays  a  commanding 
dignity  that  borders  closely  upon  the  grand  style  itself.  The 

[  167  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

"Jeanne  d'Arc"  is  indeed  criticised  for  lack  of  style.  The  horse 
is  fine,  as  always  with  M.  Fr^miet;  the  action  of  both  horse  and 
rider  is  noble,  and  the  homogeneity  of  the  two,  so  to  speak,  is 
admirably  achieved.  But  the  character  of  the  Maid  is  not  per- 
fectly satisfactory  to  a  priori  critics,  to  critics  who  have  more 
or  less  hard  and  fast  notions  about  the  immiscibility  of  the 
heroic  and  the  famihar.  The  "Jeanne  d'Arc"  is  of  course  a 
heroic  statue,  illustrating  one  of  the  most  puissant  of  profane 
legends;  and  it  is  unquestionably  familiar  and,  if  one  chooses, 
defiantly  unpretentious.  Perhaps  the  Maid  as  M.  Fremiet  rep- 
resents her  could  never  have  accomplished  legend-producing 
deeds.  Certainly  she  is  the  Maid  neither  of  Chapu,  nor  of 
Bastien-Lepage,  nor  of  the  current  convention.  She  is,  rather, 
pretty,  sympathetically  childlike,  mignonne;  but  M.  Fremiet  s 
conception  is  an  original  and  a  gracious  one,  and  even  the 
critic  addicted  to  formulae  has  only  to  forget  its  title  to  be- 
come thoroughly  in  love  with  it;  beside  this  merit  a  priori 
shortcomings  count  very  little.  But  the  other  two  works  just 
mentioned  are  open  to  no  objection  of  this  kind  or  of  any 
other,  and  in  the  category  to  which  they  belong  they  are 
splendid  works.  Since  Donatello  and  Verrocchio  nothing  of 
the  kind  has  been  done  which  surpasses  them;  and  it  is  only 
M.  Fr^miet's  penchant  for  animal  sculpture,  and  his  fondness 
for  exercising  his  lighter  fancy  in  comparatively  trivial  objets 
de  vertu,  that  obscure  in  any  degree  his  fine  talent  for  illus- 
trating the  grand  style  with  natural  ease  and  large  simplicity. 


[168] 


^^'" 


FREMIET 
JOAN  OF  ARC 


FRENCH  ART 

ftwr  kdk  €rf  style.  The  horse 

u  M.  FFemiet;  the  aeticm  of  both  horse  and 

and  ^e  homogendty  of  the  two,  so  to  speak,  isi 

*  the  character  of  the  Maid  is  not  per- 

"oiy  to  a  priori  critics,  to  critics  who  have  more 

or  iesn  hmtd  and  f«it  notions  about  the  immiscibility  of  th< 

Ir  !  the  &miimn  The  ** Jeanne  d^Arc"  is  of  course 

:  one  of  the  most  puissant  of  profane 

s;  afni  It  ts  lomjuestionably  &mUiar  and,  if  one  chooses, 

as.  Perhaps  the  Maid  as  M.  Fr^miet  rep- 

.rid-producing'  ] 

aor  of 

is,  rather, 

M.  f  r^miet's 

ia  m^^^mi  -  ious  one,  and  even  the 

T  to  forget  its  title  to  be- 
* -ur  this  merit  a  priori 

tic.  But  the  other  two  works  just 

'  are  open  to  tm  objection  of  this  kirjd  or  of  any 

other,  and  in  tbe  oitegory  to  which  they  belong  they  are 

d  works.  Since  Donatello  and  Verrocchio  nothing  of 

d'bas  been  done  which  surpasses  them;  and  it  is  only 

M.  Fn^niets  penchant  for  animal  sculpture,  and  his  fondn 

tVir  ex  his  hghter  fancy  in  comparatively  trivial  ob;ets 

(k  vertu,  that  obscure  in  any  di^p*^^  his  fine  talent  for  illus- 

traliiig  th«!  grm\d  style  with  natural  ease  and  large  simphcity. 


[168] 


rriu/ajf-^ 


ACADEMIC  SCULPTURE 


VIII 


I  HAVE  already  mentioned  the  most  representative  among 
those  who  have  "arrived"  of  the  school  of  academic  French 
sculpture  as  it  exists  to-day,  though  it  would  be  easy  to 
extend  the  list  with  Antonin  Carles,  whose  "Jeunesse"  of 
the  World's  Fair  of  1889  is  a  very  graceful  embodiment  of 
adolescence;  Suchetet,  whose  "Byblis"  of  the  same  exhibi- 
tion caused  his  early  death  to  be  deplored ;  Adrien  Gaudez, 
Etcheto,  Idrac,  and,  of  course,  many  others  of  distinction. 
There  is  no  looseness  in  characterizing  this  as  a  "school";  it 
has  its  own  qualities  and  its  corresponding  defects.  It  stands 
by  itself — apart  from  the  Greek  sculpture  and  from  its  inspi- 
ration, the  Renaissance,  and  from  the  more  recent  traditions 
of  Houdon,  or  of  Rude  and  Carpeaux.  It  is  a  thoroughly 
legitimate  and  unaffected  expression  of  national  thought  and 
feeling  at  the  present  time,  at  once  splendid  and  simple.  The 
moment  of  triumph  in  any  intellectual  movement  is,  however, 
always  a  dangerous  one.  A  slack-water  period  of  intellectual 
slothfulness  nearly  always  ensues.  Ideas  which  have  previously 
been  struggling  to  get  a  hearing  have  become  accepted  ideas 
that  have  almost  the  force  of  axioms;  no  one  thinks  of  their 
justification,  of  their  basis  in  real  truth  and  fact;  they  take 
their  place  in  the  great  category  of  conventions.  The  mind  feels 
no  longer  the  exhilaration  of  discovery,  the  stimulus  of  fresh 
perception;  the  sense  becomes  jaded,  enthusiasm  impossible. 
Dealing  with  the  same  material  and  guided  by  the  same  prin- 

[169] 


FRENCH  ART 

ciples,  its  production  becomes  inevitably  hackneyed,  artificial, 
lifeless;  the  Zeit-Geist,  the  Time-Spirit,  is  really  a  kind  of 
Sisyphus,  and  the  essence  of  life  is  movement.  This  law  of 
perpetual  renewal,  of  the  periodical  quickening  of  the  human 
spirit,  explains  the  barrenness  of  the  inheritance  of  the  great- 
est men;  shows  why  originality  is  a  necessary  element  of  per- 
fection; why  Phidias,  Praxiteles,  Donatello,  Michael  Angelo 
(not  to  go  outside  of  our  subject),  had  no  successors.  Once 
a  thing  is  done  it  is  done  for  all  time,  and  the  study  of  per- 
fection itself  avails  only  as  a  stimulus  to  perfection  in  other 
combinations.  In  fact,  the  more  nearly  perfect  the  model  the 
greater  the  necessity  for  an  absolute  break  with  it  in  order 
to  secure  anything  like  an  equivalent  in  living  force;  in  its 
direction  at  least  everything  vital  has  been  done.  So  its  lack 
of  original  force,  its  over-carefulness  for  style,  its  inevitable 
sensitiveness  to  the  criticism  that  is  based  on  convention, 
make  the  weak  side  of  the  French  academic  sculpture  of  the 
present  day,  fine  and  triumphant  as  it  is.  That  the  national 
thought  and  feehng  are  not  a  little  conventional,  and  have  the 
academic  rather  than  a  spontaneous  inspiration,  has,  however, 
lately  been  distinctly  felt  as  a  misfortune  and  a  limitation  by 
a  few  sculptors  whose  work  may  be  called  the  beginning  of  a 
new  movement  out  of  which,  whatever  may  be  its  own  limita- 
tions, nothing  but  good  can  come  to  French  sculpture  and  of 
which  the  protagonists  are  Auguste  Rodin  and  Jules  Dalou. 


[170] 


VI 
THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 


SIDE  by  side  with  the  academic  current  in  French  art  has 
moved  of  recent  years  a  naturalist  and  romantic  impulse 
whose  manifestations  have  been  always  vigorous  though  oc- 
casionally exaggerated.  In  any  of  the  great  departments  of 
activity  nationally  pursued — as  art  has  been  pursued  in  France 
since  Francis  I. — there  are  always  these  rival  currents,  of 
which  now  one  and  now  the  other  constantly  affects  the  ebb 
and  flow  of  the  tide  of  thought  and  feeUng.  The  classic  and 
romantic  duel  of  1830,  the  rise  of  the  naturalist  opposition 
to  Hugo  and  romanticism  in  our  own  day,  are  famihar  in- 
stances of  this  phenomenon  in  literature.  The  revolt  of  Geri- 
cault  and  Delacroix  against  David  and  Ingres  are  equally  well 
known  in  the  field  of  painting.  Of  recent  years  the  foundation 
of  the  periodical  L'Art  and  its  rivalry  with  the  conservative 
Gazette  des  Beaux  Arts  mark  with  the  same  definiteness,  and 
an  articulate  precision,  the  same  conflict  between  truth,  as 
new  eyes  see  it,  and  tradition.  Never,  perhaps,  since  the  early 
Renaissance,  however,  has  nature  asserted  her  supremacy  over 
convention  in  such  unmistakable,  such  insistent,  and,  one  may 
say,  I  think,  such  intolerant  fashion  as  she  is  doing  at  the 
present  moment.  Sculpture,  in  virtue  of  the  defiant  palpa- 
bility of  its  material,  is  the  most  impalpable  of  the  plastic 
arts,  and  therefore  it  feels  less  quickly  than  the  rest,  perhaps, 
the  impress  of  the  influences  of  the  epoch  and  their  classify- 

[173] 


FRENCH  ART 

ing  canons.  Natural  imitation  shows  first  in  sculpture,  and 
subsists  in  it  longest.  But  convention  once  its  conqueror,  the 
return  to  nature  is  here  most  tardy,  because,  owing  to  the 
impalpable,  the  elusive  quality  of  sculpture,  though  natural 
standards  may  everywhere  else  be  in  vogue,  no  one  thinks 
of  applying  them  to  so  speciahzed  an  expression.  Its  variation 
depends  therefore  more  completely  on  the  individual  artist 
himself.  Niccol6  Pisano,  for  example,  died  when  Giotto  was 
two  years  old,  but,  at  the  other  end  of  the  historic  line  of 
modern  art,  it  has  taken  years  since  Delacroix  to  furnish 
recognition  for  Auguste  Rodin.  The  stronghold  of  the  Insti- 
tute had  been  mined  many  times  by  revolutionary  painters 
before  Dalou  took  the  grand  medal  of  the  Salon. 

Owing  to  the  relative  and  in  fact  polemic  position  which 
these  two  artists  occupy,  the  movement  which  they  represent, 
and  of  which  as  yet  they  themselves  form  a  chief  part,  a  little 
obscures  their  respective  personalities,  which  are  nevertheless, 
in  sculpture,  by  far  the  most  positive  and  puissant  of  the  pres- 
ent epoch.  M.  Rodin's  work,  especially,  is  so  novel  that  one's 
first  impression  in  its  presence  is  of  its  implied  criticism  of  the 
Institute.  One  thinks  first  of  its  attitude,  its  point  of  view,  its 
end,  aim,  and  means,  and  of  the  utter  contrast  of  these  with 
those  of  the  accepted  contemporary  masters  in  his  art — of 
Dubois  and  Chapu,  Merci^  and  Saint-Marceaux.  One  judges 
generally,  and  instinctively  avoids  personal  and  direct  impres- 
sions. The  first  thought  is  not,  Are  the  ''Saint  Jean"  and  the 
"Bourgeois  de  Calais"  successful  works  of  art?  But,  Can  they 
be  successful  if  the  accepted  masterpieces  of  modem  sculpture 

[174] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
are  not  to  be  set  down  as  insipid  ?  One  is  a  little  bewildered.  It 
is  easy  to  see  and  to  estimate  the  admirable  traits  and  the 
shortcomings  of  M.  Dubois's  delightful  and  impressive  remi- 
niscences of  the  Renaissance,  of  M.  Mercie  s  refined  and  grace- 
ful compositions.  They  are  of  their  time  and  place.  They  em- 
body, in  distinguished  manner  and  in  an  accentuated  degree, 
the  general  inspiration.  Their  spiritual  characteristics  are  tra- 
ditional and  universal,  and  technically,  without  perhaps  often 
passing  beyond  it,  they  exhaust  cleverness.  You  may  enjoy 
or  resent  their  classic  and  exemplary  excellences,  as  you  feel 
your  taste  to  have  suffered  from  the  lack  or  the  superabun- 
dance of  academic  influences;  I  cannot  fancy  an  American 
insensitive  to  their  charm.  But  it  is  plain  that  their  perfec- 
tion is  a  very  different  thing  from  the  characteristics  of  a 
strenuous  artistic  personality  seeking  expression.  If  these  latter 
when  encountered  are  seen  to  be  evidently  of  an  extremely 
high  order,  contemporary  criticism,  at  all  events,  should  feel 
at  once  the  wisdom  of  beginning  with  the  endeavor  to  appre- 
ciate, instead  of  making  the  degree  of  its  own  familiarity  with 
them  the  test  of  their  merit. 

French  aesthetic  authority,  which  did  this  in  the  instances 
of  Barye,  of  Delacroix,  of  Millet,  of  Manet,  of  Puvis  de  Cha- 
vannes,  did  it  also  for  manv  years  in  the  instance  of  M.  Rodin. 
It  owes  its  defeat  in  the  contest  with  him — for  like  the  recal- 
citrants in  the  other  contests,  M.  Rodin  has  definitively  tri- 
umphed— to  the  unwise  attempt  to  define  him  in  terms  here- 
tofore applicable  enough  to  sculptors,  but  wholly  inappUcable 
to  him.  It  failed  to  see  that  the  thing  to  define  in  his  work 

[175] 


FRENCH  ART 

was  the  man  himself,  his  temperament,  his  genius.  Taken  by 
themselves  and  considered  as  characteristics  of  the  Institute 
sculptors,  the  obvious  traits  of  this  work  might,  that  is  to  say, 
be  adjudged  eccentric  and  empty.  Fancy  Professor  Guillaume 
suddenly  subordinating  academic  disposition  of  line  and  mass 
to  true  structural  expression!  One  would  simply  feel  the  loss 
of  his  accustomed  style  and  harmony.  With  M.  Rodin,  who 
deals  with  nature  directly,  through  the  immediate  force  of  his 
own  powerful  temperament,  to  feel  the  absence  of  the  Insti- 
tute training  and  traditions  is  absurd.  The  question  in  his  case 
is  simply  whether  or  no  he  is  a  great  artistic  personaUty,  an 
extraordinary  and  powerful  temperament,  or  whether  he  is 
merely  a  turbulent  and  capricious  protestant  against  the  mea- 
sure and  taste  of  the  Institute.  But  this  is  reaUy  no  longer  a 
question,  however  it  may  have  been  a  few  years  ago;  and 
when  his  Dante  portal  for  the  new  Palais  des  Arts  Decoratifs 
shall  have  been  finished,  and  the  pubUc  had  an  opportunity  to 
see  what  the  sculptor's  friend  and  only  serious  rival,  M.  Dalou, 
calls  "one  of  the  most,  if  not  the  most  original  and  astonishing 
pieces  of  sculpture  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  it  will  be  recog- 
nized that  M.  Rodin,  so  far  from  being  amenable  to  the  cur- 
rent canon,  has  brought  the  canon  itself  to  judgment. 

How  and  why,  people  will  perceive  in  proportion  to  their 
receptivity.  Candor  and  intelligence  will  suffice  to  appreciate 
that  the  secret  of  M.  Rodin's  art  is  structural  expression,  and 
that  it  is  this  and  not  any  superficial  eccentricity  of  execu- 
tion that  definitely  distinguishes  him  from  the  Institute.  Just 
as  his  imagination,  his  temperament,  his  spiritual  energy  and 

[  176  ] 


was  the  mma.  himsctf,  bis  temperament,  his  -genius.  Taken  by' 
th<inse!ves  and  considered  as  characteristics  of  the  Institute! 
rhc  obvious  traits  of  this  j^iight,  that  is  to  say  J 

ccentric  and  empty.  Fancy  Professor  Guillaume] 
i  iy  subordinating  academic  disposition  of  line  and  mass 
to  true  structure  expression!  One  would  simply  feel  tl 
vi  his  accustomed  style  and  harmony.  With  M.  Rodin,  wh< 
dedb  with  nature  directly,  through  the  immediate  force  of  his| 
own  powerful  temperament,  to  feel  the  absence  of  the  Insti- 
^  te  traininr^  and  traditions  h  ab<?im!  The  question  in  his  easel 

e  personality,  an 
irv  and  DOTrerftil  f  vhether  he  is 

int  against  the  mea- 
>;  -:   :md  triKfr  oi  .  But  this  h  r^lly  no  longer  a 

^„_L,  . .        v^rer  ft   may  Imve  been  a  few  years  ago;  and 
wh&3L  M$  i  _  ^r  the  new  Palais  des  Arts  D^coratifs 

shall  have  bee. .-  .        -         ^  ublic  had  an  opportunity  to 

see  what  the  sculptc^'s  friend  and  only  serious  rival,  M.  Dalou 
calls  •♦one  of  tiie  most,  if  not  the  most  original  and  astonishii  , 
pieces  of  sculpture  of  the  nineteenth  century,"  it  will  be  recog- 
lii^ed  that'M.  Rodin,  so  far  fiom  being  amenable  to  the  cur- 
i^ni  mnon,  hai^  brought  tht  itself  to  judgment. 

.  nnfl  wirv  T>popk  he  in  proportion  to  their 

t  .  u.:....,  ;  and  mi  --^     ^   -iU  suffice  to  appreci^ 

■,r  sif»f  rnt  af  M.  B*^r»n**i  art  is  structural  expression,  and 

-      j.nd  not  .--,    uperficial  eccentricity  of  execu- 

tin?:  ih:it  definitely  distinguishes  him  from  the  Institute.  Just 

'      gination,  hi«^  t^  mperament,  his  spiritual  ener£ry  and 

[  176  ] 


c  c  c  c 
(  c  c  c 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
ardor  individualize  the  positive  originality  of  his  motive,  so  the 
expressiveness  of  his  treatment  sets  him  aside  from  all  as  well 
as  from  each  of  the  Institute  sculptors  in  what  may  be  broadly 
called  technical  attitude.  No  sculptor  has  ever  carried  expres- 
sion further.  The  sculpture  of  the  present  day  has  certainly 
not  occupied  itself  much  with  it.  The  Institute  is  perhaps  a 
Uttle  afraid  of  it.  It  abhors  the  baroque  rightly  enough,  but 
very  likely  it  fails  to  see  that  the  expression  of  such  sculpture 
as  M.  Rodin's  no  more  resembles  the  contortions  of  the  Dres- 
den Museum  giants  than  it  does  the  composure  of  M.  Dela- 
planche.  The  baroque  is  only  violent  instead  of  placid  com- 
monplace, and  is  as  conventional  as  any  professor  of  sculpture 
could  desire.  Expression  means  individual  character  completely 
exhibited  rather  than  conventionally  suggested.  It  is  certainly 
not  too  much  to  say  that  in  the  sculpture  of  the  present 
day  the  sense  of  individual  character  is  conveyed  mainly  by 
convention.  The  physiognomy  has  usurped  the  place  of  the 
physique,  the  gesture  of  the  form,  the  pose  of  the  substance. 
And  face,  gesture,  form  are,  when  they  are  not  brutally  natu- 
ralistic and  so  not  art  at  all,  not  individual  and  native,  but 
typical  and  classic.  Very  much  of  the  best  modem  sculpture 
might  really  have  been  treated  like  those  antique  figurines  of 
which  the  bodies  were  made  by  wholesale,  being  supphed  with 
individual  heads  when  the  time  came  for  using  them. 

This  has  been  measurably  true  since  the  disappearance  of 
the  classic  dress  and  the  concealment  of  the  body  by  modern 
costume.  The  nudes  of  the  early  Renaissance,  in  painting  still 
more  than  in  sculpture,  are  differentiated  by  the  faces.  The 

[  IT'T'  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
rest  of  the  figure  is  generally  conventionalized  as  thoroughly 
as  the  face  itself  is  in  Byzantine  and  the  hands  in  Giottesque 
painting.  Giotto  could  draw  admirably,  it  need  not  be  said.  He 
did  draw  as  well  as  the  contemporary  feeling  for  the  human 
figure  demanded.  When  the  Renaissance  reached  its  climax 
and  the  study  of  the  antique  led  artists  to  look  beneath  dra- 
pery and  interest  themselves  in  the  form,  expression  made  an 
immense  step  forward.  Color  was  indeed  almost  lost  sight  of 
in  the  new  interest,  not  to  reappear  till  the  Venetians.  But 
owing  to  the  lack  of  visible  nudity,  to  the  lack  of  the  classic 
gymnasia,  to  the  concealments  of  modern  attire,  the  knowl- 
edge of  and  interest  in  the  form  remained,  within  certain 
limits,  an  esoteric  affair.  The  general  feeling,  even  where,  as 
in  the  Italy  of  the  quattro  and  cinque  centi,  every  one  was  a 
connoisseur,  did  not  hold  the  artist  to  expression  in  his  anat- 
omy as  the  general  Greek  feehng  did.  Every  one  was  a  con- 
noisseur of  art  alone,  not  of  nature  as  well.  Consequently,  in 
spite  of  such  an  enthusiastic  genius  as  Donatello,  who  prob- 
ably more  than  any  other  modern  has  most  nearly  approached 
the  Greeks — not  in  spiritual  attitude,  for  he  was  eminently  of 
his  time,  but  in  his  attitude  toward  nature — the  human  form 
in  art  has  for  the  most  part  remained,  not  conventionalized 
as  in  the  Byzantine  and  Gothic  times,  but  thoroughly  conven- 
tional. Michael  Angelo  himself  certainly  may  be  charged  with 
lending  the  immense  weight  of  his  majestic  genius  to  per- 
petuate the  conventional.  It  is  not  his  distortion  of  nature,  as 
pre-Raphaelite  limitedness  ghbly  asserts,  but  his  carelessness 
of  her  prodigious  potentialities,  that  marks  one  side  of  his 

[  ns] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
colossal  accomplishment.  Just  as  the  lover  of  architecture  as 
architecture  will  protest  that  Michael  Angelo's  was  meretri- 
cious, however  inspiring,  so  M.  Rodin  declares  his  sculpture 
unsatisfactory,  however  poetically  impressive.  "He  used  to  do 
a  Httle  anatomy  evenings,"  he  said  to  me,  '*and  used  his  chisel 
next  day  without  a  model.  He  repeats  endlessly  his  one  type 
— the  youth  of  the  Sistine  ceiling.  Any  particular  feHcity  of  ex- 
pression you  are  apt  to  find  him  borrowing  from  Donatello — 
such  as,  for  instance,  the  movement  of  the  arm  of  the  *David,' 
which  is  borrowed  from  Donatello's  'St.  John  Baptist.'"  Most 
people  to  whom  Michael  Angelo's  creations  appear  celestial  in 
their  majesty  at  once  and  in  their  winningness  would  deny 
this.  But  it  is  worth  citing  both  because  M.  Rodin  strikes 
so  many  crude  apprehensions  as  a  French  Michael  Angelo, 
whereas  he  is  so  radically  removed  from  him  in  point  of  view 
and  in  practice  that  the  unquestionable  spiritual  analogy  be- 
tween them  is  rather  Uke  that  between  kindred  spirits  working 
in  different  arts,  and  because,  also,  it  shows  not  only  what 
M.  Rodin  is  not,  but  what  he  is.  The  grandiose  does  not  run 
away  with  him.  His  imagination  is  occupied  largely  in  follow- 
ing out  nature's  suggestions.  His  sentiment  does  not  so  drench 
and  saturate  his  work  as  to  float  it  bodily  out  of  the  realm  of 
natural  into  that  of  supernal  beauty,  there  to  crystallize  in 
decorative  and  puissant  visions  appearing  out  of  the  void  and 
only  superficially  related  to  their  corresponding  natural  forms. 
Standing  before  the  Medicean  tombs  the  modern  susceptibility 
receives  perhaps  the  most  poignant,  one  may  almost  say  the 
most  intolerable,  impression  to  be  obtained  from  any  plastic 

[179] 


FRENCH  ART 

work  by  the  hand  of  man ;  but  it  is  a  totally  different  impres- 
sion from  that  left  by  the  sculptures  of  the  Parthenon  pedi- 
ments, not  only  because  the  sentiment  is  wholly  different,  but 
because  in  the  great  Florentine's  work  it  is  so  overwhelming 
as  whoUy  to  dominate  purely  natural  expression,  natural  char- 
acter, natural  beauty.  In  the  Medici  Chapel  the  soul  is  ex- 
alted ;  in  the  British  Museum  the  mind  is  enraptured.  The  ob- 
ject itself  seems  to  disappear  in  the  one  case,  and  to  reveal 
itself  in  the  other. 

I  do  not  mean  to  compare  M.  Rodin  with  the  Greeks — 
from  whom  in  sentiment  and  imagination  he  is,  of  course,  as 
totally  removed  as  what  is  intensely  modern  must  be  from  the 
antique — any  more  than  I  mean  to  contrast  him  with  Michael 
Angelo,  except  for  the  purposes  of  clearer  understanding  of  ^ 
his  general  aesthetic  attitude.  Association  of  anything  contem- 
porary with  what  is  classic,  and  especially  with  what  is  great- 
est in  the  classic,  is  always  a  perilous  proceeding.  Very  little  l 
time  is  apt  to  play  havoc  with  such  classification.  I  mean  only 
to  indicate  that  the  resemblance  to  Michael  Angelo,  found  by 
so  many  persons  in  such  works  as  the  Dante  doors,  is  only  of 
the  loosest  kind — as  one  might,  through  their  common  lus- 
ciousness,  compare  peaches  with  pomegranates — and  that  to 
the  discerning  eye,  or  the  eye  at  all  experienced  in  observing 
sculpture,  M.  Rodin's  sculpture  is  far  more  closely  related  to 
that  of  Donatello  and  the  Greeks.  It,  too,  reveals  rather  than 
constructs  beauty,  and  by  the  expression  of  character  rather 
than  by  the  suggestion  of  sentiment. 

An  illustration  of  M.  Rodin's  affinity  with  the  antique  is  an 

[180] 


AUB^ 
BAILLY 


:    U.N CH  ART 
w<»rk  by  the  hmid  (M  imm;  but  it  is  a  totally  difterent  impre 

fr<mi  that  left  by  the  sculpture  of  the  Parthenon  pedi-  | 
merits,  not  only  beeau^  the  sentiment  is  wholly  different,  but 
use  in  the  great  Florentine's  work  it  is  so  overwhelming 
ly  to  dominate  purely  natural  expression,  natural  char- 
r,  natural  b^uty.  In  the  Medici  Chapel  the  soul  is  ex- 
Hiivil ;  in  the  British  Museum  the  mind  is  enraptured.  The  ob- 
ject Itself  seems  to  disappear  in  the  one  case,  and  to  reveal 
itself  in  the  other. 

I  do  not  vn^m  to  compart^  M.  Rodin  with  the  Greeks— 
from  whom  \n  §entiment  and  imagination  im  is,  of  course,  as 
totally  ren  »  what  is  inter  »detfi  must  be  from  the 

■■--mm  \mn  I  mean  to  c*>nti«st  him  with  Michael 

Aii^c  k\  t  >r  the  purposes  of  ^emm^  understanding  of 

attitude.  Association  of  anything  contem- 
p  >.   rv    V  r    .  classic,  and  especially  with  what  is  great- 

est in  t  mc,  m  always  a  perilous  proceeding.  Very  little 

havoe  with  such  classification.  I  mean  (Mily  1 
to  ttiat  the  resemblance  to  Michael  Angelo,  found  by 

so  many  po-sons  in  such  works 'as  the  Dante  doors,  is  only  of 
the  loosest  kiiid — as  one  in%ht,  through  their  common  lus- 
dousness,  compare  peael^s  with  pomegranates — and  that  to 
the  discerning  eye,  or  the  iy«  at  all  experienced  in  observing 
sculpture,  M,  Rodin's  sculpture  is  far  more  closely  related  to 
that  of  Donatello  and  the  Greeks.  It,  too,  reveals  rather  than 
f constructs  beauty,  attd  by  the  expression  of  character  rather 
^  stion  of  sentiment. 

\v;ii  ';%4trat*on  of  M.  Rodin  s  affinity  with  the  antique  is  an 

;;;  ;  /.  [  iso] 


I. 'I  I/. 


<    <  I   •    •      t 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
incident  which  he  related  to  me  of  his  work  upon  his  superb 
"Age  d'Airain."  He  was  in  Naples;  he  saw  nature  in  freer  in- 
advertence than  she  allows  elsewhere;  he  had  the  best  of 
models.  Under  these  favoring  circumstances  he  spent  three 
months  on  a  leg  of  his  statue;  "which  is  equivalent  to  saying 
that  I  had  at  last  absolutely  mastered  it,"  said  he.  One  day  in 
the  Museo  Nazionale  he  noticed  in  an  antique  the  result  of  all 
his  study  and  research.  Nature,  in  other  words,  is  M.  Rodin's 
material  in  the  same  special  sense  in  which  it  was  the  antique 
material,  and  in  which,  since  Michael  Angelo  and  the  high 
Renaissance,  it  has  been  for  the  most  part  only  the  sculptor's 
means.  It  need  not  be  said  that  the  personality  of  the  artist 
may  be  as  strenuous  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other;  unless, 
indeed,  we  maintain,  as  perhaps  we  may,  that  individuality  is 
more  apt  to  atrophy  in  the  latter  instance ;  for  as  one  gets  far- 
ther and  farther  away  from  nature  he  is  in  more  danger  from 
conventionality  than  from  caprice.  And  this  is  in  fact  what  has 
happened  since  the  high  Renaissance,  the  long  line  of  conven- 
tionaUties  being  continued,  sometimes  punctuated  here  and 
there  as  by  Clodion  or  Houdon,  David,  Rude,  or  Barye,  some- 
times rising  into  great  dignity  and  refinement  of  style  and 
intelligence,  as  in  the  contemporary  sculpture  of  the  Institute, 
but  in  general  almost  purely  decorative  or  sentimental,  and, 
so  far  as  natural  expression  is  concerned,  confining  itself  to 
psychological  rather  than  physical  character. 

What  is  it,  for  instance,  that  distinguishes  a  group  like 
M.  Dubois's  "Charity"  from  the  genre  sentiment  or  incident 
of  some  German  or  Italian  "professor"?  Qualities  of  style,  of 

[181] 


FRENCH  ART 

refined  taste,  of  elegance,  of  true  intelligence.  Its  artistic  inter- 
est is  purely  decorative  and  sentimental.  Really  what  its  aver- 
age admirer  sees  in  it  is  the  same  moral  appeal  that  delights 
the  simple  admirers  of  German  or  Italian  treatment  of  a  simi- 
lar theme.  It  is  simply  infinitely  higher  bred.  Its  character  is 
developed  no  further.  Its  significance  as  form  is  not  insisted 
on.  The  parts  are  not  impressively  differentiated,  and  their 
mysterious  mutual  relations  and  correspondences  are  not  dwelt 
on.  The  physical  character,  with  its  beauties,  its  saHent  traits 
of  every  kind,  appealing  so  strongly  to  the  sculptor  to  whom 
nature  appears  plastic  as  well  as  suggestive,  is  wholly  neg- 
lected in  favor  of  the  psychological  suggestion.  And  the  indi- 
vidual character,  the  cachet  of  the  whole,  the  artistic  essence 
and  ensemble,  that  is  to  say,  M.  Dubois  has,  after  the  manner 
of  most  modern  sculpture,  conveyed  in  a  language  of  con- 
vention, which  since  the  time  of  the  Siennese  fountain,  at  all 
events,  has  been  classical. 

The  literary  artist  does  not  proceed  in  this  way.  He  does  not 
content  himself  with  telUng  us,  for  example,  that  one  of  his 
characters  is  a  good  man  or  a  bad  man,  an  able,  a  selfish,  a  tall, 
a  blond,  or  a  stupid  man,  as  the  case  may  be.  He  takes  every 
means  to  express  his  character,  and  to  do  it,  according  to 
M.  Taine's  definition  of  a  work  of  art,  more  completely  than 
it  appears  in  nature.  He  recognizes  its  complexity  and  enforces 
the  sense  of  reality  by  a  thousand  expedients  of  what  one  may 
almost  call  contrasting  masses,  derivative  movements,  and  bal- 
ancing planes.  He  distinguishes  every  possible  detail  that  plays 
any  structural  part,  and,  in  short,  instead  of  giving  us  the  mere 

[  182  ] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
symbol  of  the  Sunday-school  books,  shows  us  a  concrete  or- 
ganism at  once  characteristic  and  complex.  Judged  with  this 
strictness,  which  in  hterary  art  is  elementary,  how  much  of 
the  best  modern  sculpture  is  abstract,  symbolic,  purely  typical. 
What  insipid  fragments  most  of  the  really  eminent  Institute 
statues  would  niake  were  their  heads  knocked  off  by  some 
band  of  modem  barbarian  invaders.  In  the  event  of  such  an 
irruption,  would  there  be  any  torsos  left  from  which  future 
Poussins  could  learn  all  they  should  know  of  the  human 
form  ?  Would  there  be  any  disjecta  membra  from  which  skilled 
anatomists  could  reconstruct  the  lost  ensemble,  or  at  any 
rate  make  a  shrewd  guess  at  it?  Would  anything  survive 
mutilation  with  the  serene  confidence  in  its  fragmentary  but 
everywhere  penetrating  interest  which  seems  to  pervade  the 
most  fractured  fraction  of  a  Greek  rehef  on  the  Athenian 
acropolis?  Yes,  there  would  be  the  debris  of  Auguste  Rodin's 
sculpture. 

In  our  day  the  human  figure  has  never  been  so  well  under- 
stood. Back  of  such  expressive  modelling  as  we  note  in  the 
"Saint  Jean,"  in  the  ''Adam"  and  "Eve,"  in  the  "Calaisiens," 
in  a  dozen  figures  of  the  Dante  doors,  is  a  knowledge  of 
anatomy  such  as  even  in  the  purely  scientific  profession  of 
surgery  can  proceed  only  from  an  immense  fondness  for  na- 
ture, an  insatiable  curiosity  as  to  her  secrets,  an  inexhaustible 
delight  in  her  manifestations.  From  the  point  of  view  of  such 
knowledge  and  such  handhng  of  it,  it  is  no  wonder  that  the 
representations  of  nature  which  issue  from  the  Institute  seem 
superficial.  One  can  understand  that  from  this  point  of  view 

[  183  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

very  delightful  sculpture,  very  refined,  very  graceful,  very 
perfectly  understood  within  its  limits,  may  appear  hke  baud- 
ruche — inflated  gold-beater's  skin,  that  is  to  say,  of  which  toy 
animals  are  made  in  France,  and  which  has  thus  passed  into 
studio  argot  as  the  figure  for  whatever  lacks  structure  and 
substance.  Ask  M.  Rodin  the  explanation  of  a  movement,  an 
attitude,  in  one  of  his  works  which  strikes  your  convention- 
steeped  sense  as  strange,  and  he  will  account  for  it  just  as  an 
anatomical  demonstrator  would — pointing  out  its  necessary 
derivation  from  some  disposition  of  another  part  of  the  figure, 
and  not  at  all  dwelling  on  its  grace  or  its  other  purely  decora- 
tive feUcity.  Its  artistic  function  in  his  eyes  is  to  aid  in  ex- 
pressing fully  and  completely  the  whole  of  which  it  forms  a 
part,  not  to  constitute  a  harmonious  detail  merely  agreeable 
to  the  easily  satisfied  eye.  But  then  the  whole  will  look  ana- 
tomical rather  than  artistic.  There  is  the  point  exactly.  Will 
it?  I  remember  speculating  about  this  in  conversation  with 
M.  Rodin  himself.  "Isn't  there  danger,"  I  said,  "of  getting 
too  fond  of  nature,  of  dissecting  with  so  much  enthusiasm  that 
the  pleasure  of  discovery  may  obscure  one's  feeling  for  pure 
beauty,  of  losing  the  artistic  in  the  purely  scientific  interest,  of 
becoming  pedantic,  of  imitating  rather  than  constructing,  of 
missing  art  in  avoiding  the  artificial?"  I  had  some  difficulty  in 
making  myself  understood ;  this  perpetual  see-saw  of  nature 
and  art  which  enshrouds  assthetic  dialectics  as  in  a  Scotch  mist 
seems  curiously  factitious  to  the  truly  imaginative  mind.  But 
I  shall  always  remember  his  reply,  when  he  finally  made  me 
out,  as  one  of  the  finest  severings  conceivable  of  a  Gordian 

[184] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
knot  of  this  kind.  "Oh,  yes,"  said  he;  "there  is,  no  doubt, 
such  a  danger  for  a  mediocre  artist." 

M.  Rodin  is,  whatever  one  may  think  of  him,  certainly  not 
a  mediocre  artist.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation  may  incline 
the  Institute  to  assert  that  he  obtrudes  his  anatomy.  But  pre- 
judice itself  can  blind  no  one  of  inteUigence  to  his  immense 
imaginative  power,  to  his  poetic  "possession."  His  work  pre- 
cisely illustrates  what  I  take  to  have  been,  at  the  best  epochs, 
the  relations  of  nature  to  such  art  as  is  loosely  to  be  called 
imitative  art — what  assuredly  were  those  relations  in  the  mind 
of  the  Greek  artist.  Nature  supplies  the  parts  and  suggests 
their  cardinal  relations.  Insufficient  study  of  her  leaves  these 
superficial  and  insipid.  Inartistic  absorption  in  her  leaves  them 
lifeless.  The  imagination  which  has  itself  conceived  the  whole, 
the  idea,  fuses  them  in  its  own  heat  into  a  new  creation  which 
is  "imitative"  only  in  the  sense  that  its  elements  are  not 
inventions.  The  art  of  sculpture  has  retraced  its  steps  far 
enough  to  make  pure  invention,  as  of  Gothic  griffins  and  Ro- 
manesque symbology,  unsatisfactory  to  every  one.  But,  save  in 
M.  Rodin's  sculpture,  it  has  not  fully  renewed  the  old  alliance 
with  nature  on  the  old  terms — Donatello's  terms;  the  terms 
which  exact  the  most  tribute  from  nature,  which  insist  on  her 
according  her  completest  significance,  her  closest  secrets,  her 
faculty  of  expressing  character  as  well  as  of  suggesting  senti- 
ment. Very  beautiful  works  are  produced  without  her  aid  to 
this  extent.  We  may  be  sure  of  this  without  asking  M.  Rodin 
to  admit  it.  He  would  not  do  his  own  work  so  well  were  he 
prepared  to;  as  Millet  pointed  out  when  asked  to  write  a  criti- 

[185] 


FRENCH  ART 

cism  of  some  other  painter's  canvas,  in  estimating  the  produc- 
tion of  his  fellows  an  artist  is  inevitably  handicapped  by  the 
feeling  that  he  would  have  done  it  very  differently  himself.  It 
is  easy  not  to  share  M.  Rodin's  gloomy  vaticinations  as  to 
French  sculpture  based  on  the  continued  triumph  of  the  In- 
stitute style  and  suavity.  The  Institute  sculpture  is  too  good 
for  any  one  not  himself  engaged  in  the  struggle  to  avoid  being 
impressed  chiefly  by  its  quaUties  to  the  neglect  of  its  defects. 
At  the  same  time  it  is  clear  that  no  art  can  long  survive  in 
undiminished  vigor  that  does  not  from  time  to  time  renew  its 
vitality  by  resteeping  itself  in  the  influences  of  nature.  And  so 
M.  Rodin's  service  to  French  sculpture  becomes,  at  the  pres- 
ent moment,  especially  signal  and  salutary  because  French 
sculpture,  however  refined  and  delightful,  shows,  just  now, 
very  plainly  the  tendency  toward  the  conventional  which  has 
always  proved  so  dangerous,  and  because  M.  Rodin's  work  is 
a  conspicuous,  a  shining  example  of  the  return  to  nature  on 
the  part  not  of  a  mere  realist,  naturalist,  or  other  variety  of 
"mediocre  artist,"  but  of  a  profoundly  poetic  and  imaginative 
temperament. 

This  is  why,  one  immediately  perceives  in  studying  his 
works,  Rodin's  treatment,  while  exhausting  every  contribu- 
tary  detail  to  the  end  of  complete  expression,  is  never  per- 
mitted to  fritter  away  its  energy  either  in  the  mystifications 
of  optical  illusion,  or  in  the  infantine  idealization  of  what  is 
essentially  subordinate  and  ancillary.  This  is  why  he  devotes 
three  months  to  the  study  of  a  leg,  for  example — not  to  copy, 
but  to  "possess"  it.  Indeed,  no  sculptor  of  our  time  has  made 

[186] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
such  a  sincere  and,  in  general,  successful,  effort  to  sink  the 
sense  of  the  material  in  the  conception,  the  actual  object  in 
the  artistic  idea.  One  loses  all  sense  of  bronze  or  marble,  as  the 
case  may  be,  not  only  because  the  artistic  significance  is  so 
overmastering  that  one  is  exclusively  occupied  in  apprehend- 
ing it,  but  because  there  are  none  of  those  superficial  graces, 
those  felicities  of  surface  modeUing,  which,  however  they  may 
delight,  infallibly  distract  as  well.  Such  excellences  have  as- 
suredly their  place.  When  the  motive  is  conventional  or  other- 
wise insipid,  or  even  when  its  character  is  distinctly  light  with- 
out being  trivial,  they  are  legitimately  enough  agreeable.  And 
because,  in  our  day,  sculptural  motives  have  generally  been  of 
this  order  we  have  become  accustomed  to  look  for  such  excel- 
lences, and,  very  justly,  to  miss  them  when  they  are  absent. 
Grace  of  pose,  suavity  of  outline,  pleasing  disposition  of  mass, 
smooth,  round  deltoids  and  osseous  articulations,  and  perpet- 
ually changing  planes  of  flesh  and  free  play  of  muscular  move- 
ment, are  excellences  which,  in  the  best  of  academic  French 
sculpture,  are  sensuously  delightful  in  a  high  degree.  But  they 
invariably  rivet  our  attention  on  the  successful  way  in  which 
the  sculptor  has  used  his  bronze  or  marble  to  decorative  ends, 
and  when  they  are  accentuated  so  as  to  dominate  the  idea 
they  invariably  enfeeble  its  expression.  With  M.  Rodin  one 
does  not  think  of  his  material  at  all;  one  does  not  reflect 
whether  he  used  it  well  or  ill,  caused  it  to  lose  weight  and 
immobiUty  to  the  eye  or  not,  because  all  his  superficial  model- 
ling appears  as  an  inevitable  deduction  from  the  way  in  which 
he  has  conceived  his  larger  subject,  and  not  as  "handling"  at 

[187] 


FRENCH  ART 
all.  In  reality,  of  course,  it  is  the  acme  of  sensitive  handling. 
The  point  is  a  nice  one.  His  practice  is  a  dangerous  one.  It 
would  be  fatal  to  a  less  strenuous  temperament.  To  leave,  in 
a  manner  and  so  far  as  obvious  insistence  on  it  goes,  "han- 
dling" to  take  care  of  itself,  is  to  incur  the  peril  of  careless, 
clumsy,  and  even  brutal,  modelling,  which,  so  far  from  dis- 
sembling its  existence  behind  the  prominence  of  the  idea, 
really  emphasizes  itself  unduly  because  of  its  imperfect  and 
undeveloped  character.  Detail  that  is  neglected  really  acquires 
a  greater  prominence  than  detail  that  is  carried  too  far,  be- 
cause it  is  sensuously  disagreeable.  But  when  an  artist  like 
M.  Rodin  conceives  his  spiritual  subject  so  largely  and  with  so 
much  intensity  that  mere  sensuous  agreeableness  seems  too 
insignificant  to  him  even  to  be  treated  with  contempt,  he 
treats  his  detail  solely  with  reference  to  its  centripetal  and  or- 
ganic value,  which  immediately  becomes  immensely  enhanced, 
and  the  detail  itself,  dropping  thus  into  its  proper  place,  takes 
on  a  beauty  wholly  transcending  the  ordinary  agreeable  aspect 
of  sculptural  detail.  And  the  ensemble,  of  course,  is  in  this  way 
enforced  as  it  can  be  in  no  other,  and  we  get  an  idea  of  Victor 
Hugo  or  St.  John  Baptist  so  powerfully  and  yet  so  subtly  sug- 
gested, that  the  abstraction  seems  actually  all  that  we  see  in 
looking  at  the  concrete  bust  or  statue.  Objections  to  M.  Ro- 
din's "handling"  as  eccentric  or  capricious,  appear  to  the  sym- 
pathetic beholder  of  one  of  his  majestic  works  the  very  acme 
of  misappreciation,  and  their  real  excuse — which  is,  as  I  have 
said,  the  fact  that  such  "handling"  is  as  unfamiliar  as  the 
motives  it  accompanies — singularly  poor  and  feeble. 

[188] 


....  .^ 


^rym 


FRENCH  AAii 
all.  Ill  reality,  of  couks^,  it  is  the  acme  of  sensitive  handlii 
The  poitit:  is  $,  nice  one  His  practice  is  a  dangerous  one. 
would  be  litai  to  a  less  strenuous  temperament.  To  leave, 
a  m^ner  and  so  far  as  obvious  insistence  on  it  goes,  "ha 
dling*'  to  take  ciu-e  of  itself,  is  to  incur  the  peril  of  carele 
cluni^y,  ancl  even  brutal,  modelling,  which,  so  tax  from  d 
sembling  its  existence  behind  the  prominence  of  the  id< 
really  emphasises  itself  unduly  because  of  its  imperfect  ar 
undeveloped  char&cta*.  Ik^l  tihat  fe  neglected  really  acquir 
a  grea^^  promtn^^  tiban  detail  that  is  <mrried  too  far,  b 
cmim  iM  h  mr  re^^bte*  But  when  an  artist  lil 

M,  M4^n  c^n^ves  his  itpiiitudi  subj^jt  so  largely  and  with 
tnucb  intenmty  that  mere  sensuous  agre^bleness  seems  t< 
leant  to  him  even  to  be  floated  with  contempt,  1 
treats  iiis  detail  soldy  wMi  r  lo  iti  o^tripetal  and  c 

gMiic  value,  whirfi  imna^iaMy  toeomes  hnmensely  enhance 
and  the  detail  itself,  d  :  thus  into  its  proper  place,  tak 

on  a  beauty  wholly  traiisM^eiKling  the  ordinary  agreeable  aspe< 
of  sculptural  detaiL  And  the  ensemble,  of  course,  is  in  this  w: 
enforced  as  it  can  be  in  90  other,  and  we  get  an  idea  of  Victor 
Hugo  or  St.  John  Baptist  so  powerfully  and  yet  so  subtly  sug- 
gested, that  the  abstraction  seems  actually  all  that  we  see  in 
looking  at  the  concrete  bust  or  statue.  Objections  to  M.  Ro- 
din s  **handling'*  as  eccentric  or  capricious,  appear  to  the  syi; 
pathetic  beholder  of  one  of  his  majestic  works  the  very  acii 
of  misappreciation,  and  their  real  excuse — which  is,  as  I  ha 
said,  the  &ct  that  such  "handling"  is  as  unfamihar  as  the 
motives  it  accompaniai— singularly  poor  and  feeble. 

[188] 


c  •  c  f  c 
c  •  •  c  r 


f  c  «  «c        c  »c  c» 
c  c  c  c   c        <  c  c  cc 


c  c  c  c 
c  c  c  c 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
As  for  the  common  nature  of  these  motives,  the  character 
of  the  personaUty  which  appears  in  their  varied  presentments, 
it  is  almost  idle  to  speak  in  the  absence  of  the  work  itself,  so 
eloquent  is  this  at  once  and  so  untranslatable.  But  it  may  be 
said  approximately  that  M.  Rodin's  temperament  is  in  the 
first  place  deeply  romantic.  Everything  the  Institute  likes 
repels  him.  He  has  the  poetic  conception  of  art  and  its  mis- 
sion, and  in  poetry  any  authoritative  and  codifying  consensus 
seems  to  him  paradoxical.  Style,  in  his  view,  unless  it  is  some- 
thing wholly  uncharacterizable,  is  a  vague  and  impalpable 
spirit  breathing  through  the  work  of  some  strongly  marked 
individuaUty,  or  else  it  is  formalism.  He  dehghts  in  the  fantas- 
ticality of  the  Gothic.  The  west  fa9ade  of  Rouen  inspires  him 
more  than  all  the  formulae  of  Palladian  proportions.  He  detests 
systematization.  He  reads  Shakespeare,  Schiller,  Dante  almost 
exclusively.  He  sees  visions  and  dreams  dreams.  The  awful  in 
the  natural  forces,  moral  and  material,  seems  his  element.  He 
beheves  in  freedom,  in  the  absolute  emancipation  of  every 
faculty.  As  for  study,  study  nature.  If  then  you  fail  in  restraint 
and  measure  you  are  a  "mediocre  artist,"  whom  no  artificial 
system  devised  to  secure  measure  and  restraint  could  have 
rescued  from  essential  insignificance.  No  poet  or  landscape 
painter  ever  delighted  more  in  the  infinitely  varied  suggestive- 
ness  and  exuberance  of  nature,  or  ever  felt  the  formaUty  of 
much  that  passes  for  art  as  more  chill  and  drear.  Hence  in  all 
his  works  we  have  the  sense,  first  of  all,  of  an  overmastering 
sincerity;  then  of  a  prodigious  wealth  of  fancy;  then  of  a  mar- 
vellous acquaintance  with  his  material.  His  imagination  has  all 

[189] 


FRENCH  ART 

the  vivacity  and  tumultuousness  of  Rubens's,  but  its  images, 
if  not  better  understood,  which  would  perhaps  be  impossible, 
are  more  compact  and  their  evolution  more  orderly.  And  they 
are  furthermore  one  and  all  vivified  by  a  wholly  remarkable 
feeling  for  beauty.  In  spite  of  all  his  knowledge  of  the  external 
world,  no  artist  of  our  time  is  more  completely  mastered  by 
sentiment.  In  the  very  circumstance  of  being  free  from  such 
conventions  as  the  cameo  rehef,  the  picturesque  costume  de- 
tails, the  goldsmith's  work  characteristic  of  the  Renaissance, 
now  so  much  in  vogue,  M.  Rodin's  things  acquire  a  certain  | 
largeness  and  loftiness  as  well  as  simplicity  and  sincerity  of  . 
sentiment.  The  same  model  posed  for  the  "Saint  Jean"  that 
posed  for  a  dozen  things  turned  out  of  the  academic  studios, 
but  compared  with  the  result  in  the  latter  cases,  that  in  the 
former  is  even  more  remarkable  for  sentiment  than  for  its 
structural  sapience  and  general  physical  interest.  How  per- 
fectly insignificant  beside  its  moral  impressiveness  are  the 
graceful  works  whose  sentiment  does  not  result  from  the  ex- 
pression of  the  form,  but  is  conveyed  in  some  convention  of 
pose,  of  gesture,  of  physiognomy!  It  is  like  the  contrast  be- 
tween a  great  and  a  graceful  actor.  The  one  interests  you  by 
his  intelligent  mastery  of  convention,  by  the  tact  and  taste  | 
with  which  he  employs  in  voice,  carriage,  facial  expression, 
gesture,  diction,  the  several  conventions  according  to  which 
ideas  and  emotions  are  habitually  conveyed  to  your  compre- 
hension. Salvini,  Coquelin,  Got,  pass  immediately  outside  the 
realm  of  conventions.  Their  language,  their  medium  of  com- 
munication, is  as  new  as  what  it  expresses.  They  are  inven- 

[190] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
tive  as  well  as  intelligent.  Their  effect  is  prodigiously  height- 
ened because  in  this  way,  the  warp  as  well  as  the  woof  of  their 
art  being  expressive  and  original,  the  artistic  result  is  greatly 
fortified.  Given  the  same  model,  M.  Rodin's  result  is  in  like 
manner  expressly  and  originally  enforced  far  beyond  the  re- 
sult toward  which  the  academic  French  school  employs  the 
labels  of  the  Renaissance  as  conventionally  as  its  predecessor 
at  the  beginning  of  the  century  employed  those  of  the  antique. 
"Formerly  we  used  to  do  Greek,"  says  M.  Rodin,  with  no 
small  justice;  "now  we  do  Itahan.  That  is  all  the  difference 
there  is."  And  I  cannot  better  conclude  this  imperfect  notice 
of  the  work  of  a  great  master,  in  characterizing  which  such 
epithets  as  majestic,  Miltonic,  grandiose  suggest  themselves 
first  of  all,  than  by  calling  attention  to  the  range  which  it 
covers,  and  to  the  fact  that,  even  into  the  domain  which  one 
would  have  called  consecrate  to  the  imitators  of  the  antique 
and  the  Renaissance,  M.  Rodin's  informing  sentiment  and 
sense  of  beauty  penetrate  with  their  habitual  distinction ;  and 
that  the  little  child's  head  entitled  "Alsace,"  that  considerable 
portion  of  his  work  represented  by  "The  Wave  and  the 
Shore,"  for  example,  and  a  small  ideal  female  figure,  which 
the  manufacturer  might  covet  for  reproduction,  but  which, 
as  Bastien-Lepage  said  to  me,  is  "a  definition  of  the  essence 
of  art,"  are  really  as  noble  as  his  more  majestic  works  are 
beautiful. 


[191] 


FRENCH  ART 


II 


AuBE  is  another  sculptor  of  acknowledged  eminence  who 
ranges  himself  with  M.  Rodin  in  his  opposition  to  the  Insti- 
tute. His  figures  of  "Bailly"  and  "Dante"  are  very  fine,  full  of  j 
a  most  impressive  dignity  in  the  ensemble,  and  marked  by  the 
most  vigorous  kind  of  modeUing.  One  may  easily  like  his 
"Gambetta"  less.  But  for  years  Rodin's  only  eminent  fellow 
sculptor  was  Dalou.  Perhaps  his  protestantism  has  been  less 
pronounced  than  M.  Rodin's.  It  was  certainly  long  more  suc- 
cessful in  winning  both  the  connoisseur  and  the  public.  The 
state  itself,  which  is  now  and  then  even  more  conservative 
than  the  Institute,  has  charged  him  with  important  works,  and 
the  Salon  has  given  him  its  highest  medal.  And  he  was  thus 
recognized  long  before  M.  Rodin's  works  had  risen  out  of  the 
turmoil  of  critical  contention  to  their  present  envied  if  not  cor- 
dially approved  eminence.  But  for  being  less  energetic,  less 
absorbed,  less  intense  than  M.  Rodin's,  M.  Dalou's  enthusiasm 
for  nature  involves  a  scarcely  less  uncompromising  dishke  of 
convention.  He  had  no  success  at  the  Ecole  des  Beaux- Arts. 
Unlike  Rodin,  he  entered  those  precincts  and  worked  long 
within  them,  but  never  sympathetically  or  felicitously.  The 
rigor  of  academic  precept  was  fi-om  the  first  excessively  dis- 
tasteful to  his  essentially  and  eminently  romantic  nature.  He 
chafed  incessantly.  The  training  doubtless  stood  him  in  good 
stead  when  he  found  himself  driven  by  hard  necessity  into 
commercial  sculpture,  into  that  class  of  work  which  is  on  a 

[  192  ] 


DALOU 
TRIUMPH  OF  THE  REPUBLIC 


%.*■  'T* 


II 


sei 


iulptor  of  acknowledged  eminence  \'  ^ 
;  with  M.  Rodin  in  his  opposition  to  the  Ii 
res  of  "Bailly"  and  "Dante"  are  very  fine,  ful 
n  imm^-  uuj^russive  dignity  in  the  ensemble,  and  marked  ^ 
mm$>  '  ^*    !   of  modelling.  One  may  easily  liMf 

'  ' '  "  '  •*  rs  IkM^Vonly  eminent  febj\ 

'     "^sm  has  been  les„^ 
H.  II  vy?i>  ucruiiiiiy  long  more  sue 
liie  c^i0oisseur  and  the  public.  Thi 
3  now  and  then  nore  conserva* 

'  '  '  ortant  works, 

Lai;  ^  mni  I  :&L.  Aiid  he  was  t 

" '  had  risen  out  of 

a  fi  lo  uipir  present  envied  if  not  cor 

d5  ee.  But  for  being  less  energetic,  les^ 

al  ense  man  M.  Rodm's,  M.  Dalou  s  enthusiasn 

fV)      rturc  Uivoives  a  scarcely  less  uncompromising  dishke  o' 
convention.  He  had  no  success  at  the  ^cole  des  Beaux- A  ' 
Unlike  Rodin,  he  entered  those  precincts  and  worked  lon^ 
within  them,  but  never  sympathetically  or  felicitously.  Th< 
rigor  of  academic  precept  was  from  the  first  excessively  dis 
tasteful  to  his  essentially  and  em'       '!    romantic  nature.  He 
cli      '     Mcssantly,  The  training  douDuess  stood  him  in  g« 
gteiu  \vr2       "      found  himself  driven  by  hard  necessity  ; 
)ture,  into  that  class  of  woric  which  is  on 

[m] 


1 


UOJAO . 

ITT  'iO  ii 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
very  high  plane  for  its  kind  in  Paris,  but  for  which  the  manu- 
facturer rather  than  the  designer  receives  the  credit.  But  he 
probably  felt  no  gratitude  to  it  for  this,  persuaded  that  but  for 
its  despotic  prevalence  there  would  have  been  a  clearer  field 
for  his  spontaneous  and  agreeable  effort  to  win  distinction  in. 
He  greatly  preferred  at  this  time  the  artistic  anarchy  of  Eng- 
land, whither  he  betook  himself  after  the  Commune — not  al- 
together upon  compulsion,  but  by  prudence  perhaps;  for  like 
Rodin,  his  birth,  his  training,  his  disposition,  his  ideas,  have 
always  been  as  liberal  and  popular  in  politics  as  in  art,  and  in 
France  a  man  of  any  sincerity  and  dignity  of  character  has 
profound  political  convictions,  even  though  his  profession  be 
purely  aesthetic.  In  England  he  was  very  successful  both  at 
the  Academy  and  with  the  amateurs  of  the  aristocracy,  of 
many  of  whom  he  made  portraits,  besides  finding  ready  pur- 
chasers among  them  for  his  imaginative  works.  The  list  of 
these  latter  begins,  if  we  except  some  dehghtful  decoration  for 
one  of  the  Champs-Elysees  palaces,  with  a  statue  called  "La 
Brodeuse,"  which  won  for  him  a  medal  at  the  Salon  of  1870. 
Since  then  his  production  has  been  prodigious  in  view  of  its 
originality,  of  its  lack  of  the  powerful  momentum  extraneously 
suppUed  to  the  productive  force  that  follows  convention  and 
keeps  in  the  beaten  track. 

His  numerous  peasant  subjects  at  one  time  led  to  com- 
parison of  him  with  Millet,  but  the  likeness  is  of  the  most 
superficial  kind.  There  is  no  spiritual  kinship  whatever  be- 
tween him  and  Millet.  Dalou  models  the  Marquis  de  Dreux- 
Br^ze  with  as  much  zest  as  he  does  his  ^'Boulonnaise  allaitant 

[  193  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

son  enfant";  his  touch  is  as  sympathetic  in  his  Rubens-Hke 
"Silenus"  as  in  his  naturaUstic  "Berceuse."  Furthermore,  there 
is  absolutely  no  note  of  melancholy  in  his  reahsm — which,  at 
the  present  time,  is  a  point  well  worth  noting.  His  vivacity  ex- 
cludes the  pathetic.  Traces  of  Carpeaux's  influence  are  plain 
in  his  way  of  conceiving  such  subjects  as  Carpeaux  would 
have  handled.  No  one  could  have  come  so  closely  into  contact 
with  that  vigorous  individuahty  without  in  some  degree  under- 
going its  impress,  without  learning  to  look  for  the  alert  and 
elegant  aspects  of  his  model,  whatever  it  might  be.  But  with 
Carpeaux's  distinction  Dalou  has  more  poise.  He  is  consid- 
erably farther  away  from  the  rococo.  His  ideal  is  equally  to  be 
summarized  in  the  word  Life,  but  he  cares  more  for  its  essence, 
so  to  speak,  than  for  its  phenomena,  or  at  all  events  manages 
to  make  it  felt  rather  than  seen.  One  perceives  that  humanity 
interests  him  on  the  moral  side,  that  he  is  interested  in  its  sig- 
nificance as  well  as  its  form.  Accordingly  with  him  the  move- 
ment illustrates  the  form,  which  is  in  its  turn  truly  expressive, 
whereas  occasionally,  so  bitter  was  his  disgust  with  the  pedan- 
try of  the  schools,  with  Carpeaux  the  form  is  used  to  exhibit 
movement.  Then,  too,  M.  Dalou  has  a  certain  nobility  which 
Carpeaux's  vivacity  is  a  shade  too  animated  to  reach.  Motive 
and  treatment  blend  in  a  larger  sweep.  The  graver  substance 
follows  the  planes  and  lines  of  a  stateUer  if  less  brilliant  style. 
It  lias,  in  a  word,  more  style. 

I  can  find  no  exacter  epithet,  on  the  whole,  for  Dalou's 
large  distinction,  and  conscious  yet  sober  freedom,  than  the 
word  Venetian.  There  is  some  subtle  phrenotype  that  asso- 

[  194  ] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
ciates  him  with  the  great  eolorists.  His  work  is,  in  fact,  full 
of  color,  if  one  may  trench  on  the  jargon  of  the  studios.  It  has 
the  sumptuousness  of  Titian  and  Paul  Veronese.  Its  motives 
are  cast  in  the  same  ample  mould.  Many  of  his  figures  breathe 
the  same  air  of  high-bom  ease  and  well-being,  of  serene  and 
not  too  intellectual  composure.  There  is  an  aristocratic  tinc- 
ture even  in  his  peasants — a  kind  of  native  distinction  insep- 
arable from  his  touch.  And  in  his  women  there  is  a  certain 
gracious  sweetness,  a  certain  exquisite  and  elusive  refinement 
elsewhere  caught  only  by  Tintoretto,  but  illustrated  by  Tin- 
toretto with  such  penetrating  intensity  as  to  leave  perhaps  the 
most  nearly  indehble  impression  that  the  sensitive  amateur 
carries  away  with  him  from  Venice.  The  female  figures  in  the 
colossal  group  which  should  have  been  placed  in  the  Place  de 
la  RepubUque,  but  was  relegated  by  official  stupidity  to  the 
Place  des  Nations,  are  examples  of  this  patrician  charm  in 
carriage,  in  form,  in  feature,  in  expression.  They  have  not  the 
witchery,  the  touch  of  Bohemian  sprighthness  that  make  such 
figures  as  Carpeaux's  "Flora"  so  enchanting,  but  they  are  at 
once  sweeter  and  more  distinguished.  The  sense  for  the  exqui- 
site which  this  betrays  excludes  all  dross  from  M.  Dalou's  rich 
magnificence.  Even  the  "Silenus"  group  illustrates  exuberance 
without  excess :  I  spoke  of  it  just  now  as  Rubens-Uke,  but  it 
is  only  because  it  recalls  Rubens's  superb  strength  and  riotous 
fancy;  it  is  in  reality  a  Rubens-hke  motive  purged  in  the  exe- 
cution of  all  Flemish  grossness.  There  is  even  in  Dalou's  fan- 
tasticality of  this  sort  a  measure  and  distinction  which  temper 
animation  into  resemblance  to  such  delicate  blitheness  as  is 

[195] 


FRENCH  ART 

illustrated  by  the  Bargello  "Bacchus"  of  Jacopo  Sansovino. 
Sansovino  afterward,  by  the  way,  amid  the  artificiality  of 
Venice,  whither  he  went,  wholly  lost  his  individual  force,  as 
M.  Dalou,  owing  to  his  love  of  nature,  is  less  Ukely  to  do.  But 
his  sketch  for  a  monument  to  Victor  Hugo,  and  perhaps  still 
more  his  memorial  of  Delacroix  in  the  Luxembourg  Gardens, 
point  warningly  in  this  direction,  and  it  would  perhaps  be 
easier  than  he  supposes  to  permit  his  extraordinary  decorative 
facility  to  lead  him  on  to  execute  works  unpenetrated  by  per- 
sonal feeHng,  and  recalling  less  the  acme  of  the  Renaissance 
than  the  period  just  afterward,  when  original  effort  had  ex- 
hausted itself  and  the  movement  of  art  was  due  mainly  to 
momentum — when,  as  in  France  at  the  present  moment,  the 
enormous  mass  of  artistic  production  really  forced  pedantry 
upon  culture,  and  prevented  any  but  the  most  strenuous  per- 
sonalities from  being  genuine,  because  of  the  immensely  in- 
creased authoritativeness  of  what  had  become  classic. 

Certainly  M.  Dalou  is  far  more  nearly  in  the  current  of 
contemporary  art  than  his  friend  Rodin,  who  stands  with  his 
master  Barye  rather  defiantly  apart  from  the  regular  evolution 
of  French  sculpture,  whereas  one  can  easily  trace  the  deriva- 
tion of  M.  Dalou  and  his  relations  to  the  present  and  the  im- 
mediate past  of  his  art  in  his  country.  His  work  certainly  has 
its  Fragonard,  its  Clodion,  its  Carpeaux  side.  Like  every  tem- 
perament that  is  strongly  attracted  by  the  decorative  as  well 
as  the  significant  and  the  expressive,  pure  style  in  and  for 
itself  has  its  fascinations,  its  temptations  for  him.  Of  course  it 
does  not  succeed  in  getting  the  complete  possession  of  him 

[  196  ] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
that  it  has  of  the  Institute.  And  there  is,  as  I  have  suggested, 
an  important  difference,  disclosed  in  the  fact  that  M.  Dalou 
uses  his  faculty  for  style  in  a  personal  rather  than  in  the  con- 
ventional way.  His  decoration  is  distinctly  Dalou,  and  not 
arrangements  after  classic  formulas.  It  is  full  of  zest,  of  ardor, 
of  audacity.  So  that  if  his  work  has  what  one  may  call  its 
national  side,  it  is  because  the  author's  temperament  is  thor- 
oughly national  at  bottom,  and  not  because  this  temperament 
is  feeble  or  has  been  academically  repressed.  But  the  manifest 
fitness  with  which  it  takes  its  place  in  the  category  of  French 
sculpture  shows  the  moral  difference  between  it  and  the  work 
of  M.  Rodin.  Morally  speaking,  it  is  mainly — not  altogether, 
but  mainly — rhetorical,  whereas  M.  Rodin's  is  distinctly  poetic. 
It  is  delightful  rhetoric  and  it  has  many  poetic  strains — such 
as  the  charm  of  penetrating  distinction  I  have  mentioned.  But 
with  the  passions  in  their  simplest  and  last  analysis  he  hardly 
occupies  himself  at  all.  Such  a  work  as  "La  Rdpublique,"  the 
magnificent  bas-rehef  of  the  Hotel  de  Ville  in  Paris,  is  a 
triumph  of  allegorical  rhetoric,  very  noble,  not  a  little  moving, 
prodigious  in  its  wealth  of  imaginative  material,  composed 
from  the  centre  and  not  arranged  with  artificial  feUcity,  full 
of  suggestiveness,  full  of  power,  abounding  in  definite  sculp- 
tural qualities,  both  moral  and  technical ;  it  again  is  Rubens- 
hke  in  its  exuberance,  but  of  firmer  texture,  more  closely  con- 
densed. But  anything  approaching  the  kind  of  impressiveness 
of  the  Dante  portal  it  certainly  does  not  essay.  It  is  in  quite 
a  different  sphere.  Its  exaltation  is,  if  not  dehberate,  admirably 
self-possessed.  To  find  it  theatrical  would  be  simply  a  mark  of 

[197] 


FRENCH  ART 

our  absurd  Anglo-Saxon  preference  for  reserve  and  repression 
in  circumstances  naturally  suggesting  expansion  and  elation — 
a  preference  surely  born  of  timorousness  and  essentially  very 
subtly  theatrical  itself.  It  is  simply  not  deeply,  intensely 
poetic,  but,  rather,  a  splendid  piece  of  rhetoric,  as  I  say. 

So,  too,  is  the  famous  Mirabeau  relief,  which  is  perhaps 
M.  Dalou  s  masterpiece,  and  which  represents  his  national  side 
as  completely  as  the  group  for  the  Place  des  Nations  does 
those  of  his  qualities  I  have  endeavored  to  indicate  by  calling 
them  Venetian.  Observe  the  rare  fidehty  which  has  contributed 
its  weight  of  sincerity  to  this  admirable  relief.  Every  promi- 
nent head  of  the  many  members  of  the  Assembly,  who  never- 
theless raUy  behind  Mirabeau  with  a  fine  pell-meU  freedom  of 
artistic  effect,  is  a  portrait.  The  effect  is  Hke  that  of  similar 
works  designed  and  executed  with  the  large  leisure  of  an  age 
very  different  from  the  competition  and  struggling  hurry  of 
our  own.  In  every  respect  this  work  is  as  French  as  it  is  indi- 
vidual. It  is  penetrated  with  a  sense  of  the  dignity  of  French 
history.  It  is  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  the  cheap  genre 
effect  such  a  scheme  in  less  skilful  hands  might  easily  have 
had.  Mirabeau's  gesture,  in  fact  his  entire  presence,  is  superb, 
but  the  marquis  is  as  fine  in  his  way  as  the  tribune  in  his.  The 
beholder  assists  at  the  climax  of  a  great  crisis,  unfolded  to  him 
in  the  impartial  spirit  of  true  art,  quite  without  partisanship, 
and  though  manifestly  stimulated  by  sympathy  with  the  nobler 
cause,  even  more  acutely  conscious  of  the  grandeur  of  the 
struggle  and  the  distinction  of  those  on  all  sides  engaged  in  it, 
and  acquiring  from  these  a  kind  of  elation,  of  exaltation  such 

[  198  ] 


THE  NEW  MOVEMENT  IN  SCULPTURE 
as  the  Frenchman  experiences  only  when  he  may  give  expres- 
sion  to  his  artistic   and   his   patriotic  instincts  at  the  same 
moment. 

The  distinctly  national  qualities  of  this  masterpiece,  and 
their  harmonious  association  with  the  individual  characteristics 
of  M.  Dalou,  his  love  of  nature,  his  native  distinction,  his 
charm,  and  his  power,  in  themselves  bear  eminent  witness  to 
the  vitaHty  of  modern  French  sculpture,  in  spite  of  all  the 
influences  which  tend  to  petrify  it  with  system  and  conven- 
tion. M.  Rodin  stands  so  wholly  apart  that  it  would  be  unsafe 
perhaps  to  argue  confidently  from  his  impressive  works  the 
potentiahty  of  periodical  renewal  in  an  art  over  which  the  In- 
stitute presides  with  still  so  little  challenge  of  its  title.  But  it 
is  different  with  M.  Dalou.  Extraordinary  as  his  talent  is,  its 
unquestioned  and  universal  recognition  is  probably  in  great 
measure  due  to  the  preparedness  of  the  environment  to  appre- 
ciate extraordinary  work  of  the  kind,  to  the  high  degree  which 
French  popular  aesthetic  education,  in  a  word,  has  reached. 
And  one's  last  word  about  contemporary  French  sculpture — 
even  in  closing  a  consideration  of  the  works  of  such  protes- 
tants  as  Rodin  and  Dalou — must  be  a  recognition  of  the  im- 
mense service  of  the  Institute  in  education  of  this  kind.  Let 
some  country  without  an  institute,  around  which  what  aesthetic 
feeling  the  age  permits  may  crystallize,  however  sharply,  give 
us  a  Rodin  and  a  Dalou ! 


[199] 


i 


VII 
RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 


THE  "New  Movement"  has  flourished.  Since  the  fore- 
going pages  were  written  it  has  estabUshed  itself  firmly. 
And  the  prominence  of  Rodin  as  its  master  spirit  has  increased, 
and  imposes  further  consideration  of  his  work  and  its  rela- 
tion to  the  sculpture  it  has  in  some  measure  supplanted.  Ry 
this  time  Rodin's  bibliography  is  greater  than  that  of  the  com- 
bined Institute  school.  With  Puvis  de  Chavannes  alone  among 
French  artists,  perhaps,  he  has  recently  shared  the  primacy  of 
both  popular  and  dilettante  interest.  Important  commissions 
have  been  added  to  that  of  the  Porte  de  I'Enfer  for  the  Mus^e 
des  Arts  Ddcoratifs,  intrusted  to  him  by  Proust  so  long  ago 
when  his  work  was  generally  deemed  eccentric  and  revolu- 
tionary merely — the  monuments  to  Claude  Lorrain,  to  Ras- 
tien-Lepage,  to  Victor  Hugo,  to  the  Rourgeois  of  Calais,  to 
Ralzac.  The  sensation  made  by  his  execution  of  the  last-named 
every  one  will  recall.  It  marked  the  culmination  of  Rodin's 
vogue  in  crystaDizing  popular  opinion,  in  transforming  into 
hostiUty  what  popular  indifference  and  ignorance  (especially 
the  ignorance)  still  existed  about  him,  and  in  developing  his 
admirers  into  partisans  not  to  say  fanatics.  Thenceforth,  at  all 
events,  popular  opinion  felt  that  he  had  no  new  surprises  for 
it.  More  markedly  than  his  other  works,  more  unmistakably, 
more  brutally,  as  the  French  say,  the  "Ralzac"  distinguishes 
his  sculpture  from  that  of  the  graceful  and  elegant  art  that  has 

[  203  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
been  evolved  under  the  cegis  of  the  Institute.  So  that,  taken 
in  connection  with  his  singularizing  exhibit  at  the  Exposition 
last  year,  the  sensation  over  the  "Balzac"  may  be  said  to  have 
created  for  the  pubHc  in  general,  interested  in  such  matters, 
an  interesting  "situation"  in  French  sculpture  at  the  present 
time. 

The  situation  is  briefly  this:  What  is  known  as  the  Modem 
French  School,  the  Institute  or  academic  sculptors,  the  sculp- 
tors who  follow  the  traditions  of  the  Ecole  des  Beaux- Arts 
are  on  one  side;  on  the  other  are  Rodin,  Dalou,  Aub^  Bar- 
tholom^,  and  one  or  two  more  who  have  hardly  reached  emi- 
nence as  yet,  together  with  a  very  considerable  number  of 
intelligent  practitioners  who  show  in  a  marked — and  often  in 
an  excessive — way  the  influence  of  Rodin's  gospel  of  expres- 
sion and  animation.  Of  course  such  a  powerful  personality  as 
Rodin's,  now  that  it  has  expressed  itself  so  adequately  and  in 
such  luxuriance  as  his  has  done,  is  universally  recognized  even 
by  traditional  critics  and  public  as  something  to  be  reckoned 
with.  But  high  as  he  now  stands,  different  as  is  his  position 
now  from  what  it  was  not  so  very  long  ago  when  eccentricity 
was  regarded  as  the  main  characteristic  of  his  talent,  neverthe- 
less the  traditional  criticism  even  in  Paris — the  home  equally 
of  new  ideas  and  of  academic  convention — is  undoubtedly 
more  inchned  contentedly  to  repose  upon  what  it  regards  as 
the  safe  thing,  the  thing  that  requires  of  it  no  re-pigeonholing 
of  its  notions,  upon,  in  a  word,  the  Institute  sculpture. 

Now,  the  Institute  sculpture  of  the  present  day  is  thor- 
oughly imitative  and  Italianate.  Its  model  is  the  sculpture  of 

[  204  ] 


••••••         •  • 


RODIN 
THE  KISS 


FRi:.i>iLH  Alii 
been  evolved  under  the  wgh  of  the  Institute.  So  that,  take 
in  connecrtion  with  his  singularizing  exhibit  at  the  Expos 
last  yewr,  the  sensation  over  the  "Balzac"  may  be  said  to  have  f 
created  for  the  public  in  general,  interested  in  such  matters»^ 
an  interesting  "situation"  in  French  sculpture  at  the  present^ 
time. 

The  »tuation  is  briefly^  this:  What  is  known  as  the  Model 
Fraach  School,  the  Institute  or  academic  sculptors,  the  sculp 
ton  who  follow  the  timditiom  of  the  ifecole  des  Beaux- Art 
8  r Urn  oih^  me  Rodin,  Dalou,  Aub^,  Bai 

thoiomc  vo  more  who  have  hardly  reached  em; 

nem  ther  with  a  very  considerable  number  < 

it  practitioners  who  show  in  a  marked — and  often  i 
i^  exce^  v^ay  the  infliience  <rf  spel  of  expre 

lAmk  mud  animation.  Of  coiir^  a  powertul  personality  b 

Rodin's,  now  that  it  hm  expn^  f  so  adequately  and  i 

such  luxuriance  as  his  has  d<me,  is  universally  recognized  evt 
by  t  raditioniJ  critics  and  public  as  something  to  be  reckone 
with.  But  high  as  he  now  stands,  different  as  is  his  positio 
now  from  what  not  so  very  long  ago  when  eccentricit 

vrm  r^rsrdcd  as  the  main  characteristic  of  his  talent,  nevertht^ 
Ic^-  tlie  traditional  criticism  even  in  Paris — the  home  equal] 
of  new  ideas  and  of  academic  convention— is  undoubted! 
noire  m  cmtentedly  to  repose  upon  what  it  regards  n 

le  safe  liie  thing  that  requires  of  it  no  re-pigeonholin 

f  its  notions,  upon,  in  a  word,  the  Institute  sculpture. 
N€i^,  the  Ii»titute  sculpture  of  the  present  day  is  thor 
' :  jy  imitative  M|kI  Italianate.  Its  model  is  the  sculpture  « 

{  J^4  ] 


/ItlOH 


I 


C  C      t       t     ( 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 
the  Italian  Renaissance.  It  modifies  this  model  very  percep- 
tibly by  the  addition  of  the  French  element  of  style,  as  it 
could  hardly  fail  to  do,  being  French  at  all ;  for  the  most  indi- 
vidual trait  of  the  French  artistic  genius  is  a  faculty  for  style, 
for  the  generalized,  typical,  synthetized  presentation  of  artistic 
material,  in  contradistinction  to  the  free  and  fanciful  individ- 
ualized treatment  of  the  Italian  Renaissance.  At  the  same 
time  M.  Rodin  is  perfectly  right  in  the  remark  which  he  made 
to  me  some  years  ago  and  which  I  have  already  cited:  "Autre- 
fois nous  faisions  du  grec,  maintenant  nous  faisons  de  I'italien." 
"Formerly  we  did  the  Greek  thing"  (meaning  Pradier,  for 
example);  "now  we  do  the  Italian"  (meaning  the  current  In- 
stitute sculpture).  Compare,  for  instance,  M.  Merci^  s  "David," 
sheathing  his  sword  after  slaying  Goliath,  with  DonateUo's  fig- 
ure of  the  same  subject,  or  M.  Paul  Dubois's  "Charity"  from 
the  admirable  tomb  of  General  de  Lamoriciere  at  Nantes  with 
Jacopo  Delia  Quercia's  group  of  the  Sienna  fountain.  The 
French  two  are  essentially  reflections.  M.  Saint-Marceaux's 
fine  "Genius  Guarding  the  Secret  of  the  Tomb"  is  similarly 
inspired  by  the  Youths  of  the  Sistine  ceiling.  Instances  might 
be  multiplied.  There  is  a  difference,  but  it  is  a  national,  not  a 
personal  difference.  Essentially  it  is  the  same  thing,  done  from 
the  same  point  of  view,  only  by  a  sculptor  of  a  different  na- 
tionality under  different  conditions.  Even  of  Fr^miet's  admi- 
rable equestrian  figures,  his  "Jeanne  d'Arc"  of  the  Place  des 
Pyramides,  his  "Louis  d'Orleans"  of  the  Chateau  de  Pierre- 
fonds,  his  "Torch-bearer"  of  the  Middle  Ages  of  the  Paris 
Hotel  de  Ville,  one's  first  thought  is;  Would  they  ever  have 

[  205  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

existed,  or  would  they  have  existed  in  just  the  aspect  they 
have,  had  it  not  been  for  the  "Bartolommeo  CoUeoni"  of  Ver- 
roechio  at  Venice  or  the  "Gattamelata"  of  Donatello  at  Padua. 
Well  in  opposition  to  this  spirit  of  traditionary  respect  for, 
and  refinement  upon,  and  delicate  variation  of,  types  already 
fixed,  suddenly  appears  Auguste  Kodin.  His  art  is  thoroughly 
revolutionary  of  received  standards.  It  furnishes  what  the 
French  call  a  point  de  repere  and  recalls  routine  to  its  point  of 
departure,  as  the  appearance  of  a  great  artist,  a  master,  always 
does.  The  mistake,  before  referred  to,  of  calling  him  a  French 
Michael  Angelo,  is  a  serviceable  one  to  illustrate  just  the  point 
I  desire  to  emphasize  with  regard  to  the  Institute  sculpture  from 
which  Rodin's  differs  so  radically.  He  is  a  parallel  but  neither 
an  imitator  nor  a  follower  of  Michael  Angelo.  That  is  to  say 
his  temperament  is  in  some  measure  analogous  to  that  of  the 
great  Florentine,  but  his  art  is  his  own.  Some  of  his  figures 
recall  figures  of  Michael  Angelo,  but  they  recall  them  in  a 
directly  opposite  way  from  that  in  which  the  Institute  sculp- 
ture recalls  the  sculpture  of  the  Renaissance.  To  begin  with, 
they  recall  them  powerfully  not  weakly — but  that  is  nothing. 
They  are  conceived  in  somewhat  the  same  spirit,  not  run  in 
identically  the  same  mould — which  is  everything.  The  impres- 
sive figure  of  the  "Thinker,"  the  *'Poet,"  the  "Dreamer"  which 
dominates  and  seems  to  evoke  the  multitudinous  images  of 
the  Dante  portal  for  the  Musde  des  Arts  Decoratifs  recalls  the 
"Pensieroso"  of  the  Medici  chapel.  The  "Adam"  of  the  same 
composition  recalls  one  of  the  slaves  for  the  monument  of 
Pope  JuUus  II.,  the  "Age  d'Airain"  the  other.  But  note  how 

[  206  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

differently  they  suggest  them  from  the  way  in  which  M.  Saint- 
Marceaux's  "Genius,"  for  instance,  suggests  one  of  the  Ath- 
letes of  the  Sistine  ceiling.  The  resemblance  is  in  move- 
ment, in  general  conception,  in  those  characteristics  which 
are  the  common  property  of  all  artists  of  all  time.  M.  Saint- 
Marceaux's  %ure  is  essentially  a  variant. 


II 


More  speciously  but  not  more  soundly  Rodin  has  been  said 
to  derive  from  the  Gothic.  I  say  "speciously,"  because  the  im- 
pUcation  is  that  his  sculpture  sustains  the  same  relation  to 
Gothic  sculpture  that  the  Institute  sculpture  does  to  that  of 
the  ItaHan  Renaissance,  an  imitative  relation,  that  is  to  say. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  imitation  of  Gothic  sculpture  is  impos- 
sible. Its  essence  is  freedom;  there  is  nothing  about  it  to  imi- 
tate, no  formula  to  repeat.  The  "Gothic  revival"  of  which  we 
used  to  hear  so  much  owed  its  strength  to  its  conception  of 
"Gothic"  as  an  artistic  attitude,  and  declined  in  platitudes 
when,  forgetting  this,  it  endeavored  to  reproduce  artistic  forms. 
However  true  it  may  be  that  "mankind  is  one  in  spirit,"  in 
anything  with  so  prominent  an  external  side  as  plastic  art,  the 
modern  and  the  mediaeval  world  differ  too  widely  to  resemble 
each  other  greatly  in  their  genuine  expressions.  In  a  sense,  of 
course,  Rodin's  sculpture  has  a  Gothic  derivation,  and  in  look- 
ing at  it  one  recalls  Rheims,  as  reasonably  as  on  account  of  its 
grandeur  of  style  and  sentiment,  he  does  Michael  Angelo,  and 
on  account  of  its  plastic  beauties  the  antique.  For  that  matter 

[  207  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

Rheims  itself  recalls  the  antique  and  in  most  vivid  fashion. 
"They  say  I  copy  the  Primitifs,"  said  Puvis  de  Chavannes. 
"Why  not  say  I  have  the  same  temperament  and  see  things  in 
the  same  way" — that  is,  the  way  of  looking  at  them  that  ante- 
dated formulary;  the  natural  way  of  viewing  nature;  the  way 
that  was  abandoned  only  when  the  eminence  of  the  Cinque- 
centists  overwhelmed  their  feebler  successors  and  imposed 
upon  their  hypnotized  incapacity  types  so  palpably  perfect  as, 
excusably,  to  constitute  an  obsession  for  them.  Rodin's  resem- 
blancie  to  the  Gothic  resides  in  his  illustration  of  the  same 
freedom,  the  same  susceptibility  to  new  problems,  the  same 
inclination  to  new  solutions  of  old  ones,  the  same  delight  in 
nature's  inexhaustibiUty,  the  same  carelessness  for  complete- 
ness and  perfection.  His  art  is  altogether  too  personal  for 
formulary  of  any  kind  to  have  furnished  its  provenance. 

There  is,  however,  one  element  of  it  which  allies  it  with 
mediasval  art  even  more  closely  than  its  freedom  and  its  atti- 
tude of  dealing  directly  with  nature — its  sentiment  namely.  It 
is  saturated  with  the  sentiment  in  virtue  of  which  the  modern 
and  the  mediaeval  world  enjoy  a  kinship  unshared  by  the  an- 
tique. The  antique  world  had  its  own  sentiment,  and  a  senti- 
ment of  which  we  probably  comprehend  very  little  the  depth, 
the  elevation,  or  the  quality.  But  compared  with  the  mediaeval 
and  the  modem  sentiment  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  held 
tranquilly  in  the  leash  of  reason,  and  to  have  been — no  doubt 
in  consequence — less  individual,  less  absorbing,  monopolizing, 
overwhelming,  less  personal.  Rodin's  work  is  drenched  in  sen- 
timent, and  sentiment  so  personally  felt  as  to  have  been  ex- 

[  208  ] 


I 


-•-      •  •  • 


RODIN 
THE  POET 


FRF^^^TT  akt 

!4!Hiiiis  Itsdf  ft5e&lls  the  i  ifiost  vivid  fesiiiu? 

'  ^         V  the  Fj  i4Jiiuii:>,    .-ut.1.^  Puvis  de  Chavannea, 

>.t^^  »  fiavc  the  san^^  -"*^  ^  -^iment  and  see  things  ir 
•  '  ~-timt  is,  the  >^«j  ^^i  i^  .King  at  them  that  ante 
^.uA^iy;  the  natural  way  of  viewing  nature;  the  wa 
r.%^  atendoned  only  when  the  eminence  of  the  Cinqut 
Is  overwhelmed   their  feebler  successors  and  impose 
4^1    _    •  -  notis^  incapacity  types  so  palpably  perfect  ab 
c  \r.;><i.»5v,  M.»  tonstitute  an  -^-  -   "« -   *—  4-1,,...    Rodin's  resem 
bknce  to  the  Gothic  resi  ^f  the  sam 

r     J  ...    ^^  same  su^^^  *^ 

'H    to    P'."'-    ■■'■■  .'-ii',    i:; 

inplete 

?tr?     i>    iui  Luu    pt;rsOnal   fo 

«-  tu  have  fiimi?5iicu  5 Is  j-"  ■  ' r2,c^. 

e  element  of  it  which  ituithj  it  will 

,  1  iosely  than  its  freedom  and  its  att) 

.:uy  with  nature — its  sentiment  namely.  J 

L  Li  Lue  sentiment  in  virtue  of  which  the  moderi 

' '  y  a  kinship  unshared  by  the  aii 

_  antique  wona  uaa  its  own  sentiment,  and  a  senti 
'  '  =   we  probaWy  comprehend  very  little  the  dcr^' 
"^y.  But  compared  with  the  media \i 
ieiii  t^  .  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  heia 

'     '  eason,  and  to  have  been --^ no  doub' 

idual,  less  absorbing,  monopolizing. 
u%o  tL  Rodin's  work  is  drenched  in  sen 

tim^nij^,  /       ,     miicni  sv  personally  felt  as  to  have  been 

I  ^^08  ] 


/KIOH 


•    •     •    •  • 


•    •  •  •  < 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

pressed  with  the  utmost  smgleness  and  concentration  of  en- 
thusiasm. The  most  unsympathetic  observer  must  note  this, 
however  much  he  may  himself  prefer  quahty  to  feeHng,  and  in 
the  presence  of  feeling  manifested  in  unfamiliar  guise  recoil  in 
self-defence  upon  the  familiar  trades-union  standard  of  "regu- 
larity." What  one  observes  in  a  work  by  M.  Paul  Dubois,  let 
us  say,  is  quality.  As  quality  it  may  be  admirable  or  insignifi- 
cant, but  its  appeal  is  to  one's  sense  for  the  abstract,  the  gen- 
eral. It  happens  that  it  comes  from  the  sculptor  s  connoisseur- 
ship,  from  his  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  way  in  which 
the  Renaissance  sculptors  treated  their  projects  or  solved  their 
problems.  Rut  it  does  not  so  much  matter  where  an  artist  gets 
his  effect  as  what  he  gets.  M.  Dubois  gets,  as  I  say,  quahty. 
Rodin  gets  feeling.  The  difference  is  exactly  antipodal — or 
would  be  if  there  were  not  an  immense  amount  of  quaUty  also 
in  the  expression  of  Rodin's  feeling. 


Ill 


The  distinction  between  Rodin's  art  and  the  art  of  the  Insti- 
tute sculptors  can  be  expressed  very  definitely,  I  think,  by 
saying  that  one  is  inspired  by  nature  and  guided  by  tradition, 
and  the  other  inspired  by  tradition  and  guided  by  nature.  It 
is  difficult  to  reprehend  too  strongly  the  error  and  the  evil  of 
counsels  sometimes  addressed  to  American  artists  in  especial, 
to  abandon  their  artistic  patrimony  and  "be  themselves" — the 
insistence,  in  other  words,  upon  an  originality  that  is  a  pure 
abstraction  and  is  characteristic  of  no  great  artist  since  the 

[  209  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

evolution  of  art  began.  Everything  depends  upon  the  way  in 
which  one  makes  use  of  his  patrimony.  There  is  an  eternal 
opposition  between  using  it  in  a  routine  and  mechanical  way, 
drawing  the  interest  on  it,  so  to  speak,  from  time  to  time  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  reinvesting  it  according  to  the 
dictates  of  one's  own  feeling  and  faculty.  This  latter  is  what 
every  great  artist  has  done.  It  is  the  Greek  method.  It  is  what 
Phidias  did  with  the  iEginetan  tradition.  It  is  what  Donatello 
did  with  the  Greek  models  that  research  unearthed  at  the 
Renaissance.  It  is  what  Raphael  did  with  the  material  he 
found  at  the  Raths  of  Titus,  as  weU  as  that  furnished  him  by 
his  immediate  painting  predecessors.  It  is  what  Rodin  has  done 
with  what  his  forerunners  of  Greece  and  Italy  have  devised 
him.  It  is  exactly  what  the  Institute  sculpture  does  not  do. 
The  Institute  sculpture  occupies  a  very  distinguished  emi- 
nence in  the  estimation  of  every  competent  critic.  It  has,  as  a 
school,  no  rival  in  modem  times.  Fancy  comparing  Dubois, 
Merci^,  Rarrias,  Le  Feuvre,  with  any  English,  Italian,  or  Ger- 
man school  of  professional  sculptors.  Rut  to  speak  of  it  as  a 
legitimate  successor  of  and  as  on  somewhat  the  same  plane 
with  the  two  other  so-called  schools  with  which  only  it  is  to 
be  compared,  the  Greek  and  the  Italian  Renaissance,  is  to 
lose  sight  of  both  its  qualities  and  its  defects — its  cardinal 
qualities  of  style,  taste,  elegance,  competence,  and  its  radical 
defect  of  being  inspired  by  tradition  and  guided  by  nature  in- 
stead of  inspired  by  nature  and  guided  by  tradition,  as  I  said. 
Closely  considered  its  artistic  result  lacks  significance.  It  has 
no  personal  sap,  savor,  meaning.  It  is  wonderfully  well  done. 

[  210  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 
But,  in  the  last  analysis,  one  must  ask  the  question.  Why  do 
it  at  all,  if  you  care  so  little  about  it?  Every  one  nowadays 
can  see  that  this  is  true  of  many  of  the  admirably  equipped 
and  in  many  respects  admirable  painters  who  have  won  dis- 
tinction for  the  Institute  but  whose  day  is  over.  Why  can 
they  not  see  that  it  is  true  of  the  Institute  sculpture?  Rodin's 
mission  has  been  to  expose  the  insipidity  of  this  kind  of  per- 
fection, and  to  throw  into  sharp  and  bold  rehef  against  the 
contemporary  French  background  of  the  sculpture  inspired  by 
and  based  on  tradition,  the  ever  Hving,  ever  new  evocations  of 
an  original  genius,  corrected  and  chastened  by  tradition,  but 
suggested,  inspired,  teased  out  of  the  imagination  by  Nature 
herself. 

At  the  same  time,  however  it  may  be  travestied  by  insipid- 
ity and  petrified  by  convention,  the  feeling  for  perfection  in 
and  for  itself  remains  a  part  of  the  artist's  proper  inspiration 
and  the  pursuit  of  it  a  part  of  his  business.  It  is  the  counter- 
weight of  the  interpretation  of  nature,  in  advocacy  of  which 
Rodin  is  so  eloquently — and  exclusively — enthusiastic.  In  an 
environment  of  gesthetic  system  and  rigid  regularization,  such 
as  that  created  by  the  French  Institute,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  the  protestantism  of  a  temperament  like  Rodin's  should 
be  equally  rigorous.  But  there  is  something  else  beside  nature, 
there  is  man.  And  deeply  implanted  in  man  is  the  sense  that 
inspires  him  with  the  love  of  perfection  and  the  effort  to  attain 
it.  Let  him  seek  it  in  nature  then,  replies  M.  Rodin,  he  will 
find  it  nowhere  else,  least  of  all  in  his  own  formularies.  Very 
well,  one  may  rejoin,  but  in  the  first  place  seeking  impUes  a 

[211  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

standard  of  selection,  which  your  magnification  of  nature  tends 
to  forget,  and  in  the  second  the  necessity  of  selection  once 
admitted,  an  acquaintance  with  the  history  of  assthetic  selec- 
tion, its  theory  and  practice,  is  inevitably  to  be  deduced  as  a 
salutary  and  important  corollary.  The  necessity  of  not  tak- 
ing nature  indiscriminately  as  one  finds  it,  I  dare  say,  Rodin 
would  admit,  as  a  purely  abstract  proposition,  at  all  events.  But 
his  talk  naturally,  I  repeat,  given  his  temperament  and  his  en- 
vironment, is  exclusively  magnification  of  nature.  "Nonsense," 
he  says,  according  to  M.  Gabriel  Mourey ;  "there  is  no  need  of 
the  imagination  to  be  a  great  artist;  it  is  enough  to  observe 
nature,  to  be  a  patient  workman,  and  to  have  a  little  intelli- 
gence." The  ambiguity  is  in  the  '^little  intelligence."  Other- 
wise the  remark  is  an  abuse  of  language,  of  course.  But  within 
the  radius  of  the  Institute's  influence  to  magnify  nature  is 
venial.  And  he  would,  no  doubt,  maintain  that  whatever 
metaphysical  position  logic  imposed  on  aesthetic  philosophy 
in  this  matter,  the  artist's  training  should  be  general  enough 
to  render  his  selection  instinctive. 

IV 

This  theory  and  his  practice  are  in  perfect  accord.  The  study 
of  tradition,  acquaintanceship  with  the  selective  genius  of  the 
long  line  of  antecedent  artists,  familiarity  with  what  the  Greek, 
the  mediaeval,  the  Renaissance  artists  saw  in  nature — culture, 
in  a  word — are  not  particularly  apparent  in  Rodin's  sculpture, 
and  they  do  not  in  themselves  directly  tend  to  produce  art  of 

[  212  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

which  the  note  is  hfe,  personahty,  originality,  vigor,  intensity, 
variety — the  best  in  modern  art,  that  is  to  say.  They  tend, 
however,  to  exalt  the  salutary,  the  serene,  and  the  important 
principle  of  perfection,  to  keep  its  worship  ahve,  to  pass  on  its 
torch  to  the  next  hand.  They  tend  to  curb  the  violent,  to 
restrain  the  exaggerated,  to  elevate  the  ignoble.  In  brief,  the 
office  of  culture  is  the  same  in  the  province  of  art  as  it  is  else- 
where, the  cultivation  of  the  sense  of  perfection,  the  sense 
which  nature  with  its  incompleteness  and  its  immense  inor- 
ganic content  of  infinite  suggestion  cannot  supply.  The  peril 
of  the  pursuit  of  perfection  is  inanity,  the  peril  of  nature- wor- 
ship is  eccentricity.  Opposite  temperaments  will  always  differ 
as  to  the  comparative  value  of  the  two.  And  nothing  is  more 
characteristic  of  the  present  century,  in  which  art  has  become 
self-conscious,  than  the  breach  into  which  this  difference  has 
widened.  On  the  one  hand  there  is  the  tendency  strikingly 
manifested,  for  example,  in  the  circumstance  that  our  age  is 
the  first  to  preserve  and  "restore"  the  art  of  other  epochs  with 
a  reverence  not  accorded  to  its  own,  and  on  the  other  the 
tendency  universally  affirmed  to  be  specifically  modern,  the 
tendency  to  independence  and  differentiation.  There  are,  in 
fine,  two  masters  which  it  is  difficult  for  the  artist  to  serve 
and  render  each  his  due  without  withholding  it  from  the 
other. 

I  think  it  is  "the  greater  inchnation"  of  the  balance  in 
Rodin's  hands  toward  a  somewhat  peremptory  and  exclusive 
exaltation  of  nature,  to  an  extent  which  eliminates  the  ele- 
ment of  perfection,  a  distinct  effort  for  which  we  are  apt  to 

[  213  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

associate  with  all  art,  that  accounts  in  general  for  the  sincere 
scepticism  with  which  his  sculpture  is  viewed  by  those  whom 
it  has  not  yet  won.  I  can,  to  be  sure,  easily  fancy  his  answer 
to  this  qualification  of  his  artistic  completeness.  "Perfection," 
he  would  say,  "is  a  chimera.  You  really  have  no  notion  of 
what  you  mean  by  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact  none  of  the  great 
artists  pursued  it,  except  as  instinctively  they  recognized  sug- 
gestions of  it  in  the  nature  which  in  proportion  to  their  great- 
ness they  studied  profoundly."  And  he  would  agree  with  Mr. 
Eakins — perhaps  his  closest  parallel  in  this  country — whom 
I  remember  remarking  rather  contemptuously:  "The  Greeks 
didn't  draw  from  the  antique."  As  to  Michael  Angelo,  to 
whom  it  is  significant  that  he  greatly  prefers  Donatello,  he 
would  maintain  that  it  is  either  in  spite  of  or  in  virtue  of  his 
defects  rather  than  his  qualities  that  he  is  so  unduly  admired 
as  a  sculptor — a  contention  betraying  a  fairly  pantheistic  pref- 
erence of  the  concrete  to  the  abstract. 

In  rejoinder  one  could  surely  assert  that  no  one  better  than 
Rodin  himself  knows  the  practice  of  the  greatest  artists.  He, 
at  all  events,  is  not  an  example  of  what  may  be  attained  with- 
out familiarity  with  the  line  of  tradition.  How  much  or  little 
it  may  have  influenced  him  is  "known  only  to  the  gods,"  and 
though  his  practice  must  certainly  be  held  to  illustrate  his 
theory,  there  is  to  be  borne  in  mind  that  incalculable  quantity, 
"a  little  inteUigence,"  which  saves  one  from  being  "a  mediocre 
artist"  and  which  no  study  of  nature  can  supply.  M.  Rodin 
would  undoubtedly  admit  that  to  this  end  art  is,  if  not  an 
inspiration  like  nature,  an  influence  of  stimulant,  formative, 

[  214  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

restraining,  and  instructive  worth,  and  that  familiarity  with  the 
syntheses  of  nature  that  have  stood  the  test  of  time  has  the 
value  of  culture  in  any  field  of  effort.  So  far  we  are  agreed, 
perhaps.  But  besides  that,  there  is  the  extra-natural  and 
wholly  human  aspiration  for  perfection,  for  the  achievement 
of  completeness  in  beauty,  the  neglect  of  which  is  now  and 
then  to  be  felt  in  Rodin's  work. 

On  the  other  hand  one  reason  for  the  vogue  that  he  has 
won  lies  on  the  surface.  The  present  is  an  era  of  nature- wor- 
ship, and  Rodin  deals  with  nature  directly,  exclusively,  and 
copiously.  No  sculptor  of  modern  or  classic  times  has  more 
completely  familiarized  himself  with  her  secrets.  So  uncom- 
promising and  so  obvious  is  his  point  of  view,  and  so  antago- 
nistic is  it  to  that  usually  illustrated  in  modern  sculpture,  that 
it  seems  absolutely  novel  and  original;  and  a  fresh  point  of 
view  is,  nowadays,  as  welcome  as  naturalistic  inspiration — 
after  it  has  once  succeeded  in  imposing  itself.  He  does  not 
express  the  idea  of  his  figures  or  compositions  by  the  conven- 
tional symbols  common  to  most  artists,  but  by  actual  realiza- 
tion. He  does  not  depend  upon  suggestion,  but  challenges  the 
observer  by  the  complete  structural  expression  which  may  be 
called  the  keynote  of  his  sculpture.  He  does  not  rely  upon  the 
physiognomy  to  convey  his  idea  of  character,  but  expresses  it 
with  the  entire  physique.  The  gesture  is  derived  from  the 
form,  the  pose  is  dictated  by  the  substance,  so  that  both  em- 
phasize the  character  which  controls  them,  instead  of  merely 
suggesting  it  in  a  conventional  language  of  their  own.  Much 
modern  sculpture  might  be  differentiated,  at  least  for  those 

[215] 


FRENCH  ART 

who  inspect  and  admire  it,  by  the  purely  psychological  expres- 
sion that  is  given  to  it  by  the  sculptor — that  is  to  say,  by  a 
literary  label.  If  the  rest  is  well  done,  competently  executed, 
that  is  all  that  is  asked.  Every  detail  of  Rodin's  sculpture  is 
speaking.  If  it  were  knocked  to  pieces  its  fragments  would 
stiU  be  interesting.  But  not  only  that — not  only  is  its  detail 
interesting  as  artistic  reproduction  of  naturaUstic  detail,  but 
it  is  all  carefully  studied  as  detail,  and  by  no  means  insisted 
upon  unduly  to  the  detriment  of  the  ensembley  of  the  idea,  or 
whole,  to  be  enforced.  Perhaps  no  one  in  our  time — painter 
or  sculptor — has  been  able  to  present  the  actual  breathing, 
human  being  so  adequately,  so  palpably.  His  rendering  of 
flesh  alone  singularizes  him  among  the  sculptors  of  all  time,  I 
should  say,  and,  technically  considered,  constitutes  his  unique 
distinction.  So  far  as  science  is  concerned  M.  Rodin  is  more 
than  a  match  for  the  best-equipped  pupils  that  the  Institute 
turns  out. 

He  handles  clay  as  freely  as  an  impressionist  painter  does 
pigments.  His  skill  is  quite  unexampled,  and  one  sees  at  once 
in  looking  at  any  of  his  works  that  technically  he  can  do  any- 
thing he  chooses.  His  great  distinction  in  this  respect  is  that 
what  he  chooses  to  do  is  the  interpretative  representation  of 
nature.  He  has  none  of  the  sculptor's  traditions  as  to  what  is 
fit  subject  for  representation  in  form.  Nature  is  his  to  work 
with  as  fully  and  abundantly  as  she  is  the  least  academic 
painter  s.  What  he  tries  to  do,  what  he  succeeds  beyond  com- 
parison in  doing,  is  to  express  nature  as  forcibly  as  Rousseau 
or  Manet  can.  For  sculpture  this — in  the  degree  in  which 

[216] 


•••••• 


RODIN 
APOLLO 


FRENCH    vi.  I 

t  una  admire  it,  by  f  >  ely  psychological  expr^ 

•J  to  it  by  the  sculptor — that  is  to  say,  by  a 

:i^  the  r^t  is  wdl  done,  competently  executed, 

iiiiii  IS  as^ced.  Every  detail  of  Rodin^s  sculpture 

•  *  t^   were  knocked  to  pieces  its  fragments  would 

sitii  t*  ig.  But  not  only  that — not  only  is  its  detail 

tisiic  reproduction  of  naturalistic  detail,  but 

^t  ii*  fc  studied  as  detail,  and  by  no  means  insisted 

ii)  u>  the  detaiment  of  the  ensemble,  of  the  idea,  or 

UK  be  enfofioed.  Perhaps  no  one  in  our  time — painter 

«r — hm  been  aWe  to  present  Urn  breathing, 

ikx.ui&u   ttemg  so  adequately,  ik>  pdpaWy,  His  rendering  of 

^^  l^fkes  him  among  the  sculptors  of  all  time,  I 

^^'  cc^^dered,  constitutes  his  unique 

«lr      H  .  H   ;^>  Ui  a  f?  is  Cioii^^  !    Rodin  i^  more 

aEMildi  ftwr  ti)  hat  the  Institute 

ty  as  freely  as  an  impressionist  painter  does 
pigUieiiUi.  ills  skiU  is  quite  unexampled,  and  one  sees  at  or^ 
in  looking  at  any  of  his  works  that  technically  he  can  do  any- 
thing he  chooses.  His  great  distinction  in  this  respect  is  that 
what  he  chooses  to  do  is  the  interpretative  representation  of 
nature.  He  has  none  of  the  sculptor's  traditions  as  to  what 

presentation  in  form.  Nature  is  his  to  work 
witii  lis  ikiiiy  Aii^  abundantly  as  she  is  the  least  academic 
P*'  f        to  do,  what  he  succeeds  beyond  com- 

pa*  nature  as  forcibly  as  Rousseau 

ot  J\l«inet;  cail.  Fm  M^ulpture  this — in  the  degree  in  which 

[my 


/KIOH 


.^m^^. 


/ 


I  c   c     c       c     c       t 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

Rodin  does  it,  at  least — was  in  modern  art  a  new  thing.  His 
range  in  this  is  extraordinary.  It  extends  from  the  prettinesses 
of  Clodion  to  the  heroic  works  of — but  really  when  it  comes 
to  heroic  sculpture  is  there  any  one  since  Michael  Angelo  to 
whom  Rodin  can  be  compared?  His  httle  heads  and  figures  and 
groups  are  exquisite  beyond  any  works  of  the  purely  dilettante 
sculptor,  even  of  the  sculptor  of  the  rank  and  class  of  Cellini, 
because  they  are  very  far  from  being  the  exercise  of  the  in- 
stinct of  preciosity  but  are  as  solidly  based  on  the  reality  of 
nature  as  Barye's  animals  or  Donatello's  men. 


It  is  Rodin's  temperament,  however,  not  his  modelling,  su- 
perb as  his  modelling  is,  that  is  the  conspicuous,  the  interest- 
ing, the  noteworthy  thing  to  be  discerned  in  his  work.  His 
imagination  is  one  of  the  most  fertile  and  at  the  same  time 
most  original,  most  particular  that  has  ever  expressed  itself 
plastically  in  the  whole  history  of  art — not  French  art  alone. 
To  express  his  imaginings,  however  personal,  he  uses,  it  is 
true,  the  infinitely  varied  material  of  concrete  nature  and  the 
material  world,  and  in  a  way  which  often  appears  to  elicit  its 
suggestiveness  rather  than  embody  its  echo  in  his  own  sus- 
ceptibihty.  But  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  his  work  shows  a 
wealth  of  imaginativeness.  And  when  to  this  variety  of  inven- 
tion we  add  the  sentiment  with  which,  as  I  have  abeady  said, 
his  sculpture  is  saturated,  it  need  hardly  be  added  that  his 
temperament  is  thoroughly  romantic  and  poetic.  Realistic  as 

[  217  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
his  work  is  in  fidelity  to  the  form  and  substance  of  nature,  it 
is  temperamentally  as  far  as  possible  removed  from  that  natu- 
ralistic inspiration  which  is  half  science.  The  "Balzac"  has  been 
enough  discussed,  but  it  may  be  pointed  out  that  whatever  its 
success  or  failure,  it  emphasizes  the  temperamental  side  of 
Rodin's  genius,  which  is  here  unbalanced  by  the  determination 
and  concreteness  usually  so  marked  in  his  work.  Compare  it 
for  sentiment,  for  grandeur,  for  elevation,  with  such  a  work  as 
M.  Fr^miet's  "Meissonnier,"  the  last  word  in  Institute  real- 
ism. Of  the  Porte  de  TEnfer,  which  has  absorbed  Rodin  for 
nearly  twenty  years,  one  may  say  without  hyperbole  that  im- 
aginatively it  is  adequately  Dantesque,  at  least  on  its  horrent 
side,  and  it  has  depths  of  poignant  sweetness  and  intense 
pathos  in  its  beautiful  arabesque  of  line  and  boss  that  render 
it  unique.  The  "Calais  Bourgeois"  shows  a  wholly  novel  and 
moving  treatment  of  a  problem  as  large  and  difficult  as  any 
a  sculptor  can  be  called  upon  to  solve.  The  busts  of  Mme. 
Morla,  of  Victor  Hugo,  of  Dalou,  of  Legros,  of  Laurens,  of 
a  score  of  other  celebrities,  attest  a  striking  individuality  in 
taking  and  treating  the  most  hackneyed  of  all  sculptural  en- 
deavors— the  portrait  bust.  The  "Saint  Jean,"  and  "Adam" 
and  "Eve,"  and  the  "Age  d'Airain,"  the  monuments  of  Claude 
Lorrain,  of  Bastien-Lepage,  of  Victor  Hugo,  of  Puvis  de  Cha- 
vannes,  are  equally  illustrative  of  versatility  upon  a  high  plane 
of  imaginative  effort  and  natural  inspiration. 


[218] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 


VI 


There  are  three  objections  that  I  have  heard  made  to  Rodin's 
sculpture,  none  of  them,  it  seems  to  me,  wholly  sound.  In  the 
first  place,  he  is  said  to  have  a  defective  sense  of  design.  This 
is  easy  to  say  and  therefore  tempting ;  nothing  is  lazier  than 
the  critical  faculty.  But  there  is  a  distinction  to  be  made.  It 
is  true  that  he  is  not  a  great  composer  in  the  sense  of  com- 
posing with  native  zest  and  seeing  a  complicated  ensemble  first 
of  all  and  with  intuitive  imagination.  In  a  great  composer  like 
Raphael,  for  instance,  the  composition  is  the  first  thing  one 
notes;  one  seizes  at  once  the  evident  fact  that  composition 
is  the  element  of  art  for  which  he  was  born,  in  which  he  ex- 
presses his  genius  most  freely  and  directly,  with  the  least  fric- 
tion. Yet,  I  do  not  think  it  can  be  said  that  the  Porte  de  I'Enfer 
is  not  a  great  composition.  It  is  distributed  on  large  lines  and 
the  treatment  of  the  theme  is  balanced  and  counterweighted 
with  a  curious  fehcity  which  serves  to  co-ordinate  and  throw 
into  artistic  rehef  the  tumultuous  hurly-burly  and  tremendous 
anarchy  of  the  immensely  various  elements.  These  latter  per- 
haps make  more  impression  than  the  whole  does;  that  is  all 
one  can  reasonably  say.  If  Rodin  had  been  as  instinctively 
drawn  to  the  ensemble  as  he  was  to  its  elements  he  would  not 
have  been  so  long  in  executing  it;  whereas,  long  as  he  has 
been  at  work  upon  it,  it  is  stiU  far  from  finished.  But  it  would 
infalUbly  have  been  less  impressive  and  as  it  stands  now  it 
demonstrates  that  instead  of  having  a  defective  sense  of  design 

[  219  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

its  sculptor  has  a  defiant  disregard  of  conventional  composi- 
tion. So  have  the  Japanese,  so  far  as  regards  the  Institute 
formulae.  To  say  that  Chapu's  "  Berry er,"  for  example,  or  any 
one  of  the  many  imitations  of  the  simple  and  elementary  sym- 
metry of  the  Medicean  tombs  since  Michael  Angelo's  day, 
shows  a  sharper  sense  for  design  than  the  Dante  door  is  like 
saying  that  Giotto's  round  "O"  is  a  finer  composition  than 
the  "Last  Judgment,"  or  that  the  Greek  temple  excels  in  de- 
sign the  Cathedral  of  Amiens,  or  the  cell  the  organism.  The 
"Calais  Bourgeois"  is  another  thing.  Its  defiance  of  convention 
seems  to  me  a  outrance.  But  I  confess  it  interests  me  less  to 
consider  how  much  the  apparent  helter-skelter  of  its  neverthe- 
less wonderfully  skilful  composition  displeases  my  probably 
convention-steeped  desire  for  symmetry  than  to  endeavor  to 
appreciate  Rodin's  point  of  view  and  to  decide  whether  he 
has  forcibly  illustrated  it.  I  think  he  has.  The  history  of  the 
monument  explains  it.  The  Calaisiens  wanted  one  of  more  or 
less  conventional,  even  pyramidal  shape.  "In  that  case,"  said 
Rodin,  "get  some  one  else.  I  will  represent  those  citizens 
setting  forth  on  their  errand,  not  perhaps  as  they  actually 
did  set  forth,  but  as  a  rational  imagination  penetrated  with 
the  sentiment  of  the  incident  may  justifiably  conceive  the 
incident  and  enforce  its  sentiment — its  proper  and  pertinent 
sentiment  and  not  some  other;  or  I  will  not  do  the  work  at 
all."  The  result  is  interesting — wholly  successful  or  not  as 
time  or  the  contemporary  professional  judgment,  whose  ver- 
dicts have  sometimes  erroneously  been  assumed  to  be  iden- 
tical, may  decide — but  to  the  amateur,  the  layman,  with  his 

[  220  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

technical   ignorance  and    consequent   irresponsibility,  deeply 
interesting,  touching,  and  elevated. 


VII 


It  is  penetrated  in  any  event  with  the  sense  of  reality — the 
mark,  I  think,  of  serious  effort  at  the  present  day.  And  this 
brings  me  to  the  second  reproach  addressed  to  Rodin,  his  lack 
of  feeUng  for  ideal  sculpture,  as  it  is  called.  I  confess  I  am 
not  quite  sure  that  I  know  what  "ideal  sculpture"  means.  It 
cannot  mean  imaginative  sculpture,  because  this  is  exactly 
what  Rodin's  sculpture  is,  and  exactly  what  the  Institute 
sculpture,  which  he  thinks  insipid,  is  not.  And  the  Institute 
sculpture  is  called  ideal  and  Rodin's  realistic.  Rodin  is,  it  is 
true,  an  uncompromising  realist,  but  to  find  a  lack  of  ideahty 
in  this  fact  is  to  betray  mental  confusion.  What  exactly  do  we 
mean  by  the  ideal  element  in  a  work  of  art  when  we  speak 
strictly?  We  mean  the  element  in  virtue  of  which  it  corre- 
sponds closely  and  cordially  to  the  image  or  idea  created  or 
awakened  by  it  in  our  own  mind.  In  art  "the  ideal"  isn't 
merely  what  we'd  hke  but  don't  have.  It  is  as  present  in  a 
still-hfe  by  Vollon  or  Chardin  as  in  a  composition  by  Puvis 
de  Chavannes.  Reahty  is  just  as  competent  to  furnish  it  as 
insubstantiality  is — it  is  as  subject  to  the  actual  vision  as  to 
the  dream  and  as  much  the  material  of  the  imagination  as  are 
certain  imaginings.  It  is  beyond  the  reach  of  the  photograph 
because  the  photograph  gives  us  the  aspect  of  the  object 
and  does  not  establish  relations  with  our  idea  of  it — which 

[  221  ] 


FRENCH  ART 
is  not  to  say,  by  the  way,  that  a  good  photograph  is  not 
often  an  exceedingly  superior  thing,  though  probably  because 
the  camera  is  handled  by  an  artist  like  a  brush  or  a  modelling 
tool. 

A  distinction  less  liable  to  confusion,  I  think,  than  that 
usually  made  between  the  real  and  the  ideal,  would  be  that 
between  the  concrete  and  the  abstract.  Probably  what  is 
meant  by  ideal  sculpture  is  abstract  sculpture — sculpture  deal- 
ing with  abstractions,  personifications,  muses,  divinities,  senti- 
ments, etc.,  etc.  Now  Rodin's  neglect  of  this  sort  of  sculpture 
is  indeed  very  marked.  But  he  has  the  immense  advantage 
over  the  Institute,  where,  as  he  says,  they  have  recipes  for  sen- 
timents, of  being  in  harmony  with  the  tendency  of  his  time. 
Nothing  has  more  clearly  characterized  the  evolution  of  the 
human  mind  since  the  days  of  the  Greeks  than  its  steady 
progress  in  appetence  from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete.  The 
rise  of  the  individual,  the  development  of  the  scientific  spirit, 
every  trait  of  the  modern  world  and  mind  emphasizes  this  evo- 
lution. In  the  characteristic  art  of  our  day,  the  ideal  is  sought 
for  in  the  concrete.  It  savors  somewhat  of  absurdity  to  seek  it 
in  the  abstract  at  a  time  when  the  human  spirit  is  no  longer  in 
complete  touch  with  the  abstract.  The  notion  that  it  is  peril- 
ous for  art  to  yield  anything  to  the  scientific  spirit  is  seen  to 
be  puerile  the  moment  one  recognizes,  as  one  must,  that  the 
entire  energy  of  the  era  is  concentrated  upon  what  is  to  be 
discerned  in,  argued  from,  and  inspired  by  the  tangible,  the 
real,  the  substantial.  If  there  be  any  innate  contradiction 
between  art  and  science,  certainly  art  is  bound  to  get  the 

[  222  ] 


RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

worst  of  it,  because  science  is  the  best  thing  going.  There  is  no 
such  contradiction.  The  proof  is  that  science  is  pursued  artisti- 
cally. Why  not  pursue  art  scientifically?  I  should  say  there 
could  be  no  question  that  Rodin's  art  is  eminently  scientific. 
He  knows  more  than  any  other  sculptor  about  articulations 
and  attachments,  derivations,  action,  correlations,  and  co-ordi- 
nations. But,  for  being  studious  and  scientific  it  is  none  the 
less  art,  none  the  less  ideal.  His  anatomy  is  always  artistically 
expressive,  his  arrangements  always  adjusted  to  the  end  of 
beauty — whether  of  the  beauty  that  resides  in  force,  or  of  that 
in  which  charm  predominates  over  power,  or  of  that  which 
merely  accentuates  the  essence  of  abiding  and  impressive  real- 
ity that  all  concrete  things  contain  in  germ  and  are  ready  to 
yield  up  to  the  synthetist  who  sees  their  significance. 


VIII 


In  the  third  place,  Rodin's  sculpture  is  accused  by  the  con- 
ventional criticism  of  obtruding  detail — not  merely  of  that 
insistence  upon  detail  which  involves  neglect  of  the  ensemble, 
nor  that  which  results  in  neglect  of  ideahty,  but  a  technical 
treatment  which  brings  into  undue  and  even  grotesque  salience 
the  essentially  trivial  parts  of  a  single  figure,  for  example,  as 
well  as  the  mere  elements  of  a  composition.  He  is  said  to  be 
over  fond  of  his  anatomy,  to  care  more  for  the  charpente  than 
the  outline,  to  be  blind  to  suavity,  grace,  dehcacy,  in  his  im- 
petuous energy  of  expression.  The  back  of  his  "Saint  Jean" 
seems  to  the  conventional  sense  a  mass  of  corrugations,  the 

[  223  ] 


FRENCH  ART 

occiput  of  his  Hugo  bust  a  surface  dotted  with  impossible  and 
accidental  protuberances.  In  a  word  his  works  are  esteemed 
"unfinished" — the  great  word  of  phiHstine  censure.  An  answer 
to  this  is  comprised  in  M.  Taine  s  definition  of  a  work  of  art 
before  cited — namely,  the  representation  of  a  character  more 
completely  than  it  is  found  in  nature.  Victor  Hugo's  head 
probably  did  not  possess  the  nodosities  with  which  Rodin  has 
endowed  it,  but  Rodin's  treatment  has  expressed  its  character 
artistically,  by  the  relief  it  gives  to  its  essential  and  the  sub- 
ordination it  imposes  upon  its  accidental  traits.  Of  course  any 
Italian  or  German  professor  of  sculpture  could  produce  a 
more  exact  rephca  as  regards  form  but  incontestably  in  this 
way  he  would  leave  out  the  Hugo. 

One  of  his  admirers,  Mr.  Charles  Quentin,  cites  Rodin's 
views  of  ^'finish"  as  follows:  "There  is  no  finish  possible  in  a 
work  of  art,  since  it  is  nature  and  nature  knows  no  finish, 
being  infinite ;  therefore  one  stops  at  some  stage  or  other  when 
he  has  put  into  his  work  all  he  sees,  all  he  has  sought  for,  aU 
he  cares  to  put,  or  aU  he  particularly  wants;  but  one  could 
really  go  on  forever  and  see  more  to  do."  Here  again  the  atti- 
tude is  more  interesting  than  the  philosophy,  literally  inter- 
preted, is  sound.  A  work  of  art  is  not  nature,  it  is  the  artist's 
impression,  or  idea  of  nature  to  begin  with,  and  in  addition 
penetrated  with  his  feeling — if  he  is  an  artist  of  temperament 
like  Rodin.  And  it  is  just  because  nature  is  infinite  that  art 
exists — as  a  finite  suggestion  of  infinity,  an  organic,  personal 
and  circumscribed  image  of  inexhaustible  objective  incom- 
pleteness. Rut  when  these  truths  are  used  to  legitimate  the 

[  224  ] 


RODIN 
SPRING 


c^  bm.  lingo 

sii  of  a 

Ki  it.  i^s  1.-  ..>r  Hugos  iieiiii     ^ 

ihe  in  hich  F  as 

iuis  exi 
by  thcj  relief  it  give  entiai  and  *- 

'inposes  upon  its  acciueaiiil  traits.  Of  com ^ 


Rodin  s 
possibl 
ft  ^  imture  and  s 

re  or  other  vvhtu 
.  ork  ail  he  sees,  idl  he  has  sought  f 
or  all  he  ]  rly  wants;  but  one  could 

er  and  see  more  to  do.*'  Here  again  the  atti- 
tiKi^  interesting  tham  V  osophy,  literally  int« 

pret  trt  is  i 

a  of  imxure  to  b^in  with,,  and  in  addition 
if  he  is  an  artist  of  teni 
because  nature  is  infinite  that  an 
exi  I  of  infinity,  an  organic,  pe 

nw  f  inexhaustible  objective  ir 

• trutlis  are  used  to  legitimate  the 

[  ««^  ] 


•        •  •  • 

•  •  •  •   « 

•  •  •  «  c 
•  •  •  *  ( 

•      •  •  c 

•..-: : 

•  •: : 
>••    •  • .. 


'  RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

literal  and  disown  the  suggestive  in  art,  one  can  understand  a 
disposition  to  even  exaggerated  exaltation  of  what  is  unduly 
neglected  and  what,  practically  speaking,  after  all,  is  for  a 
modern  artist  the  one  important  thing  to  bear  in  mind. 

The  modern  artist,  especially  the  French  artist,  is  very  dis- 
proportionately more  familiar  with  the  discoveries  of  art  than 
he  is  with  the  secrets  of  nature.  The  "culture  conquests"  in  his 
particular  field  he  has  at  his  finger  ends.  His  besetting  temp- 
tation is  to  rely  on  them,  to  adapt  them  to  his  purposes,  to 
content  himself  with  a  mere  rearrangement  of  them.  He  lives 
in  an  "artistic  atmosphere,''  outside  of  which  his  inspiration 
fails.  The  counsel  he  needs  is  to  steep  himself — educated,  not 
to  say  conventional,  as  he  is — in  the  influences  and  study  the 
suggestions  of  nature,  to  feel  his  formularies  in  his  fingers,  if 
need  be,  but  not  bother  his  brain  with  them  in  the  actual 
transaction  of  his  work.  Of  course,  the  artist  absolutely  igno- 
rant of  art  is  absolutely  negligible — as  neghgible  as  the  boy 
with  his  slate  or  the  savage  with  his  slab  of  wood.  There  are 
such  from  time  to  time  and  they  have  the  vogue  and  recog- 
nition proper  to  the  freak — the  freak  in  art,  whom  no  knowl- 
edge or  love  of  nature  can  essentially  mitigate.  But  it  remains 
true  that  where  art  is  practised  and  talked  about,  where  artists 
are  experts  and  the  public  is  a  connoisseur,  there  cannot  be 
too  much  talk  of  and  devotion  to  nature — in  the  interests  of 
art  itself. 

Therefore  such  approximate  language  as  that  of  M.  Rodin's 
about  art's  having  no  finish  because  nature,  which  art  is,  is 
infinite,  is,  from  any  practical  point  of  view,  stimulating  and 

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suggestive.  Corot  might  have — may  have — talked  in  this  way 
of  his  beautifully  generalized  landscapes.  Homer  Martin  used 
to  very  pithily  and  quaintly,  I  remember.  When  some  one  in- 
quired once  if  a  certain  picture  of  his  were  finished  he  asked: 
"Do  you  mean  am  I  going  to  do  anything  more  to  it?"  But 
this  point  of  view  is  particularly  pertinent  in  the  matter  of 
sculpture — of  which  for  so  many  persons  "finish"  is  an  in- 
separable, an  integral  quality.  It  reminds  one — as  Rodin's 
work  itself  constantly  does — that  sculpture  generalizes,  that 
its  potentiaUties  are  not  exhausted  in  the  constricted  epitome 
which  "form"  seems  to  imply  to  some  tastes;  that,  besides 
manifesting  itself  as  outline,  it  exists  as  volume,  as  actual  bulk 
impregnated  with  the  abstract  qualities  which  make  it  fine  art 
— grace,  force,  charm  of  distribution  and  relation — and  which 
in  general  are  ascribed  solely  to  the  silhouette  when  they  are 
not  indeed  credited  to  the  physiognomy. 

Considered  in  this  way  there  is  no  place  to  stop,  there  is 
no  possibility  of  "finish,"  the  envelope  is  merged  in,  identical 
with,  the  form,  and  except  where  texture  has  a  value  the  form 
has  no  surface.  When  the  surface  has  a  sculptural  value  either 
to  express  quahty  or  for  contrast,  Rodin,  as  a  matter  of  fact, 
treats  it  as  scrupulously  and  expUcitly — often  as  "smoothly" 
— as  the  most  superficial  devotee  of  the  superficies  of  sculp- 
ture could  desire.  In  fine,  the  most  one  can  say,  I  think,  about 
the  inadequacy  of  Rodin's  technical  "finish"  is  that  his  devo- 
tion to  eocpression  here,  as  elsewhere,  perhaps  blinds  him  to  an 
occasional  opportunity  of  decorating  sufficiency  of  expression, 
of  statement,  with  that  touch  of  purely  sensuous  and  irrespon- 

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RODIN  AND  THE  INSTITUTE 

sible  agreeableness  which  adds  nothing — save  pure  dehght! — 
to  its  force  or  significance.  There  is  now  and  then  perhaps  a 
certain  sacrifice  which  seems  inspired  by  austerity  but  which 
really  springs  from  the  hypnosis  of  nature  over  the  senses  as 
well  as  the  soul  of  her  worshipper.  **It  has  often  happened  to 
me  before  certain  models,"  he  says,  "to  stop  short  in  disap- 
pointment. At  the  first  glance  they  did  not  please  me.  Yet, 
after  making  a  conscious  effort,  I  perceived  in  the  course  of  my 
work  that  there  was  an  element  of  unperceived  beauty  in  these 
beings  that  I  despised.  And  at  the  end  of  a  few  minutes,  from 
having  been  disgusted  I  became  enthusiastic."  What  is  the  use 
of  talking  of  the  pursuit  of  perfection  and  of  "finish"  as  an 
element  of  perfection,  to  an  artist  who  feels  in  that  way?  To 
him  the  "pursuit  of  perfection"  must  seem  a  euphemism  for 
the  manufacture  of  clock-tops.  And  it  is  incontestable  that 
but  for  the  Institute,  French  clock-tops,  which  are  admirable, 
would  be  very  much  less  so. 

Indeed,  one  is  forced  to  remember,  whatever  one  s  conclu- 
sions as  to  either  theory  or  practice,  that  the  moral  which 
further  consideration  of  Rodin  really  enforces  is  that  which 
I  have  already  drawn:  His  is  as  strongly  characterized  and 
artistic  an  individuality,  as  puissant  a  personality,  as  one  can 
conceive.  Yet  he  was  developed,  as  our  modern  phrase  is,  in 
an  environment  that  is  the  most  strictly  and  narrowly  aca- 
demic that  has  ever  been  known.  He  constitutes  an  a  pos- 
teriori demonstration  of  the  value  of  an  academy,  of  which 
the  a  priori  demonstration  is  that  original  or  even  eccentric 
geniuses  can  only  arise  in  a  community  which  by  some  con- 

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FRENCH  ART 

certed  means  and  central  agency — such  as  an  academy- 
brings  art  into  such  prominence  and  popularity  that  it  be- 
comes a  common,  a  recognized,  and  a  prized  pursuit.  How 
shall  the  few  be  chosen  unless  the  many  are  called? 


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